Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

Snake

2026-05-14T15:12:02Z

Silverwing235:

{{av}}
{{disambig}}
A '''Snake''' is a legless reptilian creature, of which there are several kinds in ''Dwarf Fortress'':
* {{creature/variation links|adder|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|anaconda|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|black mamba|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|bushmaster|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|copperhead snake|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|kingsnake|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|king cobra|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|python|sep=**}}
* {{creature/variation links|rattlesnake|sep=**}}
{{minorspoiler}}
* {{creature/multi variation list|fire snake|helmet snake|serpent man}}

{{Translation
| dwarven = therleth
| elvish = imaza
| goblin = slorust
| human = rosha
}}

[[ru:Snake]]

Children

2026-05-14T14:57:47Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
[[File:child_sprite_preview.png|right]]
Most [[creature]]s, including [[dwarf|dwarves]], start out as infants, then after a certain number of years become '''children''', and after that become adults - for dwarves, childhood starts after reaching one year of age, and continues until age 18.

In fortress mode, some migrant dwarves are [[marriage|married]] and may bring children. Children who immigrate to your [[fortress]] might be any age from one to 17. You can determine the age of any child by viewing their [[thoughts and preferences|thoughts]] screen, which will give you the child's exact age as well as their date of birth. This information is visible regardless of whether or not the child was born in your fortress.

"Resident" heterosexually [[marriage|married]] female dwarves may also give birth to children. Dwarves can even have [[miscarriage]]s (if they become dehydrated, starving, or are subjected to certain types of physical trauma), which causes an unhappy thought for the mother, but not for the father.

Much of [[goblin]] society is centered around [[thief|stealing the children]] of other races. The appropriate response to a baby-snatcher appearing on the map is the judicious use of [[magma|dwarven diplomacy]].

Humanoid creatures (the five main species) that are children or babies will appear as unique smaller sprites, and will appear to be wearing red if the option to show worn clothing dyes is disabled. Young animals and other creatures will have a smaller sprite than their adult counterparts, with some of them having baby sprites as well. Curiously enough, portraits can still show dwarven children with facial hair.
{{Translation
| dwarven = tilat
| elvish = imi
| goblin = tox
| human = shin
}}
==Babies==
[[File:dwarf_children.jpg|thumb|260px|right|Before they grow up to realize they're in an unwinnable game. ''Art by Devilingo'']][[File:df_baby_list.png|thumb|260px|right|Many children and a baby seen in the citizen information menu.]][[File:dwarf_child_portrait.png|thumb|96px|right|Portrait of a dwarven child.]]Babies do not have to be born in [[bed]]s, but are born wherever the mother happens to be, which will interrupt most current actions of the mother. The game will play the birth sound effect and [[announcement|announce]] the arrival of the baby. The mother will cancel whatever task she was in the middle of to seek her infant, and then will ''usually'' resume whatever task she was doing before the child was born. It is possible for dwarven mothers to give birth to twins or triplets, although that is exceedingly rare (1 out of 500), due to their [MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE] token. Babies are looked after by their mother, who will continue working while carrying the babies.

[[Unconscious]] mothers will not wake up when they give birth – [[sleep]]ing and resting in a [[hospital]] will not be interrupted. Dwarves in a [[strange mood]] will also not interrupt their mood when giving birth – cancelling a mood forces instant insanity, so it is likely a coding choice to protect mothers (and children). Imprisoned mothers can grab their child if they give birth while on a chain, but cannot retrieve an infant that is out of their reach, which can cause massive problems, since a mother carrying a child is forced to drop it before being brought to prison. Most jobs performed by a mother upon giving birth will be immediately cancelled to pick up the baby, but for instance a current haul animal job, where the mother is already leading the animal, will not be cancelled, but will be finished before the infant is picked up.

If the mother is sleeping or otherwise prevented from collecting her infant, the baby will be free to roam as it pleases. An emancipated baby acts in a similar manner to a [[insanity|raving mad]] adult, wandering freely over the map without any sense of self-preservation, gravitating to [[Activity_zone#Meeting_area|meeting zone]]s. It may be fed and watered by other dwarves, and in recent versions, such care happens regularly enough to keep orphans alive. As long as a baby is not within reach of a hostile creature, no harm will be done to it. "Job cancellation spam" can be generated as the baby is seen by the game to be "insane" (example: "Urist McBabyname, Dwarven baby, cancels Clean Self: Too Insane"), but once it reaches childhood (at 12 months), that will stop, and they go about their business like any other dwarven child. While dwarven children are dressed in red, a baby's clothes will be dark yellow.

The sex of a baby is determined upon birth; this means that [[Cheating#Savescumming|reloading a save]] before a baby's birth might get a baby of the other sex. After giving birth, it is possible for the mother to become pregnant again immediately, and give birth to another child nine months later.

Babies will crawl to burrows when assigned to them.

Any baby being carried by its mother will effectively leech [[food]] and [[Thirst|drink]] from her, causing her to become hungry or thirsty at double the usual rate. This does not, however, count as alcohol consumption – when a baby is close to 1 year old, it will have severe withdrawal.

Babies can gain memories, although it seems that only thoughts with strong emotions can become the memory of a baby. Many thoughts (with strong emotions), which can become a memory, are able to change the dwarf's values/facets (upon becoming a core memory). And since babies (and small children) will, if any, only have few memories, such memories will have a tremendous effect on the dwarf's happiness (as they will continuously remember the same few memories). Most of the thoughts associated with strong emotions (in a baby) are negative thoughts, and only a few are positive. Of the negative thoughts observed to become memories, aside from the (negative) ones known to be able to change the dwarf's values/facets, is being pestered by vermin (but this thought does rarely become a memory, but being aggrevated by vermin might be another matter as vermin generating such thoughts are hated by the dwarven baby). On the positive side, aside from gaining a sibling (which will usually change the dwarf's values/facets later on), being "near to a favorite (caged) creature" can become a memory (and presumably also being near to a waterfall {{verify}}). All of this means that it is not advised to let a baby-carrying mother (and thus the baby) be caught in the rain. But it might be a good idea to let the baby-carrying mother walk by a cage containing a favorite creature of the baby, as babies getting such a positive memory might be "fine" upon becoming a child (and not merely content or even unhappy). Also, babies can gain knowledge of dance, music and poetry forms by watching performances, although they supposedly cannot gain any other skills (except when eg. taken on a raid mission by their mother).

The first order of business when a baby becomes a child is to pick up their clothing. After finishing that task, the child will start to play in the tile they picked up the last piece of clothing (although they might fetch a toy beforehand). This behaviour, by proper stockpile placement (and stockpile links) and having enough mittens/cloaks/hoods, can be exploited, so that the former dwarven baby will always play in a guildhall after becoming a child.

==Labor==
In [[fortress mode]], children can be assigned the relatively minor labors designated chores, below, but will also perform a few simple tasks on their own, such as:

* Socializing in [[location]]s, also holding [[performance]]s like singing, or reciting poetry (and they can gain skill levels in dancing, poetry and musical instruments). But children can perform music that they know anywhere and everywhere (especially if it only requires one performer), they are not bound by meeting places or locations, but instead start singing in a bedroom or stockpile instead. But performing seems to be currently gated, ie. only children, that have a musician and/or singing skill, will perform music, which means that children born in the current fortress will not display that behaviour, but "void" dwarf children (migrants) can as they can be created with such performance skills.
* Picking out, and wearing, their own [[clothing]].
* Watching (and even leading) guild demonstrations, provided the guild is open to all citizens.
* Attending meetings to complain to someone in charge, if unhappy (ie. as a 1 year old due to being caught in the rain as a baby).
* Eating, drinking, and sleeping as necessary.
* [[Farming|Harvesting]] [[crops]], if the "All dwarves harvest" [[standing orders|order]] is on. This will also increase their [[planter]] skill, which only happens very sporadically in the current version.
* When they want to, storing their items, including toys (specifically, they may perform a Store Item in Bin order for multiple toys).
* Children can play with [[toy]]s, such as puzzle boxes or toy axes, and might also play make believe. Both are basically filler jobs without tangible benefits, except for usually giving the child a happy thought and so unstressing the child (although some children might not feel anything instead).
* Fighting or running from hostiles, depending on circumstances. (Since children are small, can't use armor or weapons, and all start without combat skills, don't expect them to be effective fighters. Nor, for that matter, can they be assigned to squads.)
* Children can enter [[strange mood]]s, going about them the same as an adult dwarf. If they did not watch any guild demonstrations in a moodable skill (prior to the strange mood), they will attempt to make one artifact appropriate for a [[bone carver]], [[wood crafter]], or [[stonecrafter]], otherwise they will create an artifact according to the highest moodable skill (normal strange mood rules apply). They will also gain experience as normal if they complete it, except for possessed moods.
* Children respect [[burrow]] restrictions, including civilian alerts.
* Attempting to [[swim]] if submerged in [[water]].

Children may not be assigned to the [[noble|nobility]] and cannot join any guild (even if legendary in one of the required skills). However, they ''can'' be assigned bedrooms - even though children might still choose to sleep in their parents' bedroom instead of their own. If no tasks are available, they will gladly loiter in meeting areas, like [[dining room]]s for example, for the duration of their youth. Children born in the fort tend to follow their mother by preference, even (especially?) if their mother is a soldier and is currently going into battle.

Children are also known to be invisible to [[vampire]]s, thus making excellent crime detectors, as they speak truthfully in all cases.

The game will create an [[announcement]] when children reach adulthood, and can be assigned labors. This announcement will not pause and/or center the screen by default.

==Chores==
There is a chores tab under Labor/Standing Orders that allows players to disable/enable the chore tasks, which are:

* [[Feed patients/prisoners]]
* [[Milking]]
* [[Stone hauling]]
* [[Wood hauling]]
* [[Item hauling]]
* [[Burial]]
* [[Food hauling]]
* [[Refuse hauling]]
* [[Furniture hauling]]
* [[Animal hauling]]
* [[Trade good hauling]]
* [[Water hauling]]
* [[Cleaning]]
* [[Lever operation]]

Children don't seem to like chores, adding to their [[stress]] level and possibly causing them to become depressed and moody, which, as true with any adult, can then result in a child committing various [[Justice#Crimes|crimes]]. Turning off chores (if only for your more stressed children) will help alleviate this issue - you must decide for yourself if the increased mood is worth the loss of their labor.

Consider turning off Refuse Hauling and Burial as well; children tend to accumulate bad thoughts when hauling corpses, which can stress them out even more than it does adults. Also, children tend to start playing immediately after finishing a task, so if you leave Refuse Hauling on, they may decide that the corpse pile is an excellent playground, adding to the problem.

Furthermore, do not expect children who are younger than 12 years to be as good at hauling as their adult counterparts with similar physical attributes, as they are smaller and size does matter when it comes to hauling. It is even worse for children before they are at least one year & 168 days old (528 days total), as this is another size cut point.

== Dwarven School (aka getting children to watch guild demonstrations) ==
Even though a real school for dwarven children does not exist yet, every guildhall (which is not only open for its members) can serve as a school for them. The only slight hurdles are having someone in the guildhall to teach lessons and getting the children to the guildhall (to study aka watch guild demonstrations). But both of these hurdles can be overcome easily.

First a big enough guildhall is needed and enough levers (preferably unlinked ones) installed in the guildhall, intended to be pulled by the dwarven children - these levers should not be assigned to anyone (of course other levers can be in the guildhall assigned to adult dwarves). If other levers are used for defenses etc. one lever for each such defensive purpose should preferably be located somewhere else, with nearby stockpiles for food and drink (and a few bedrooms for the defensive lever pullers) and a lockable door, so that some dwarves (needed to pull the defensive levers) can be locked in, when it is time to give some lessons to the children (and get them to the guildhall). Also, a work detail just for lever pulling should be created, and only the dwarves (locked in for the defensive lever duty) should be set to do these tasks (at least temporary). All other (adult) dwarves should not be allowed to pull any levers.

Temporarily set the intended teacher and some other adult dwarves (ie. substitute teachers) to not do any labors at all (not even hauling) and then also set them to do the lever-pulling work detail and set a few levers in the guildhall to be pulled (to get the teachers and substitute teachers into the guildhall). After they are in the guildhall, remove them from the lever pulling duty, and let them do some guild demonstrations.

Then disable all chores for children, except lever pulling (which needs to be enabled), and set all levers, which are unlined and not assigned to anyone, in the guildhall to be pulled. Every time a dwarven child takes up a task to pull any of the levers (can be seen in the task list) that dwarven child should be excluded from doing any chores at all (otherwise the dwarven child might decide to pull multiple levers). The child will still pull the lever (finish the current task) and then - unless the child spontaneously decides to pick-up equipment, eat, drink or sleep (in which case the chores for the child need to be enabled again)- the child will start socializing in the guild hall (at least if there is still a guild demonstration in progress or currently a new one is organized) and the child will watch the next guild demonstrations in the guildhall (usually until either the child decides to eat, drink, sleep, pickup some equipment, no new guild demonstrations are organized or some chores are again enabled for the child). This way more or less all children can be goaded into the guildhall to take some lessons (aka watch some guild demonstrations). When nearly all children are in the guildhall or have already watched some guild demonstrations, then the lever pulling of the adults can be reset to the original preference of the player and the locked (forbidden) door for the defensive lever pullers can be unlocked (unforbidden). Also after the player is satisfied with the learning progress of the children the original chores for the children can be set again - some children currently watching a guild demonstration can still be left to temporarily do not chores (if there are still some guild demonstrations in progress). Also the original labors of the teacher (and substitute teachers) can be enabled again.

''Note:'' If at any point, after some children have started watching guild demonstrations, if for one reason or another no one is present to give another guild demonstration, then all children will usually decide that the lessons are over and will immediately start to play (either in the guildhall or somewhere else)which is the main reason why there should be a teacher and substitute teachers present, and the labors for these have to be temporarily disabled (so that they will only leave the guildhall to eat, drink, sleep or pick-up equipment).

==Dwarven parenthood==

In the eighth [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html DFTalk], it was mentioned that, due to a programming oversight, children's parents can become so preoccupied with finding their children that they can die of thirst.

==Too many children==
If there are too many children in the fort, [[FPS]] may suffer. [[Unfortunate accident|Removing]] children is difficult, as doing so may quickly lead to [[stress]]. One possibility is to [[burrow]] children outside to aid [[thief|snatchers]]. To prevent a large population of children in the first place, it is preferred to set the child and/or strict population capacities in the [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]].

In longer-running forts, when a parent has more than 10 children of one gender, the 11th onward will merely be referred to as "son" or "daughter". The exception to this is that the youngest will always be referred to as "youngest son" or "youngest daughter".

==Non-dwarven children==
[[Human]]s, goblins, [[Elf|elves]], [[kobold]]s and subterranean [[animal people]] follow the same aging progress of dwarves (born as babies, becoming children at a year old then become adults at eighteen). The same is true for some races of wild humanoid creatures and [[semi-megabeast]]s, though some possess shorter or longer child states than dwarves do, e.g. [[troll]]s become adults at the age of 10. Regardless of how long their child states are, intelligent non-dwarf children are functionally identical to their dwarven counterparts for gameplay purposes.

Young animals possess limited capabilities compared to their adult stages. Infant [[milk]]-bearing livestock can't be milked, young [[wool]]-bearing animals can't be [[shear]]ed, and bird and reptile hatchlings are unable to lay [[egg]]s. However, unlike intelligent creatures, almost all animals follow a different aging progress; they skip the baby stage entirely and are born as children, who become adults at only 1 year of age (though they usually don't stop growing in size until the age of 2). Certain exceptions exist, however, such as [[elephant]]s, who take 10 years to reach adulthood. Savage [[animal people]] versions of these animals follow this same aging progress.

Certain creatures possess no child state to speak of, and are technically adults at birth, having all the capabilities of an 'adult' immediately after starting existing (though most of them are still subject to growing in size as they get older). These creatures include stuff like all species of snakes, [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[creeping eye]]s, [[magma crab]]s and most [[megabeast]]s. Inorganic creatures such as [[Gabbro man|gabbro men]], [[Fire man|fire men]] and [[Amethyst man|amethyst men]] also exist only as adults and never as children. If the creature born as an adult is an intelligent creature, they'll be born with generally mild levels in some skills.

Creatures capable of being [[invader]]s can do so regardless of age - as such, you may be attacked by a [[werebeast]] child, or a young [[roc]], [[giant]], [[cyclops]], [[ettin]] or [[minotaur]]. They will behave exactly like their adult counterparts, but will generally be easier to kill than adults due to their smaller size. Such cases are rare, as they require either children being infected by a werebeast and not dying in the process, or for megabeasts to breed, both being particularly uncommon occurrences.

If the mother of a child is not a historical figure (on birth of the child) the game will not keep track of the family relationship between parent and offspring. The game will also not keep track of offspring of male historical figures, unless the mother is already a historical figure at the time of the fertilization of the not yet laid eggs (in case of egg-layers) resp. at the time the pregnancy starts (non egg-layers).


{{Category|Dwarves}}
{{Category|Relationships}}
[[ru:Children]]

Children

2026-05-14T13:40:51Z

Silverwing235: /* Non-dwarven children */

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
[[File:child_sprite_preview.png|right]]
Most [[creature]]s, including [[dwarf|dwarves]], start out as infants, then after a certain number of years become '''children''', and after that become adults - for dwarves, childhood starts after reaching one year of age, and continues until age 18.

In fortress mode, some migrant dwarves are [[marriage|married]] and may bring children. Children who immigrate to your [[fortress]] might be any age from one to 17. You can determine the age of any child by viewing their [[thoughts and preferences|thoughts]] screen, which will give you the child's exact age as well as their date of birth. This information is visible regardless of whether or not the child was born in your fortress.

"Resident" heterosexually [[marriage|married]] female dwarves may also give birth to children. Dwarves can even have [[miscarriage]]s (if they become dehydrated, starving, or are subjected to certain types of physical trauma), which causes an unhappy thought for the mother, but not for the father.

Much of [[goblin]] society is centered around [[thief|stealing the children]] of other races. The appropriate response to a baby-snatcher appearing on the map is the judicious use of [[magma|dwarven diplomacy]].

Humanoid creatures (the five main species) that are children or babies will appear as unique smaller sprites, and will appear to be wearing red if the option to show worn clothing dyes is disabled. Young animals and other creatures will have a smaller sprite than their adult counterparts, with some of them having baby sprites as well. Curiously enough, portraits can still show dwarven children with facial hair.
{{Translation
| dwarven = tilat
| elvish = imi
| goblin = tox
| human = shin
}}
==Babies==
[[File:dwarf_children.jpg|thumb|260px|right|Before they grow up to realize they're in an unwinnable game. ''Art by Devilingo'']][[File:df_baby_list.png|thumb|260px|right|Many children and a baby seen in the citizen information menu.]][[File:dwarf_child_portrait.png|thumb|96px|right|Portrait of a dwarven child.]]Babies do not have to be born in [[bed]]s, but are born wherever the mother happens to be, which will interrupt most current actions of the mother. The game will play the birth sound effect and [[announcement|announce]] the arrival of the baby. The mother will cancel whatever task she was in the middle of to seek her infant, and then will ''usually'' resume whatever task she was doing before the child was born. It is possible for dwarven mothers to give birth to twins or triplets, although that is exceedingly rare (1 out of 500), due to their [MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE] token. Babies are looked after by their mother, who will continue working while carrying the babies.

[[Unconscious]] mothers will not wake up when they give birth – [[sleep]]ing and resting in a [[hospital]] will not be interrupted. Dwarves in a [[strange mood]] will also not interrupt their mood when giving birth – cancelling a mood forces instant insanity, so it is likely a coding choice to protect mothers (and children). Imprisoned mothers can grab their child if they give birth while on a chain, but cannot retrieve an infant that is out of their reach, which can cause massive problems, since a mother carrying a child is forced to drop it before being brought to prison. Most jobs performed by a mother upon giving birth will be immediatly cancelled to pick up the baby, but for instance a current haul animal job, where the mother is already leading the animal, will not be cancelled, but will be finished before the infant is picked up.

If the mother is sleeping or otherwise prevented from collecting her infant, the baby will be free to roam as it pleases. An emancipated baby acts in a similar manner to a [[insanity|raving mad]] adult, wandering freely over the map without any sense of self-preservation, gravitating to [[Activity_zone#Meeting_area|meeting zone]]s. It may be fed and watered by other dwarves, and in recent versions, such care happens regularly enough to keep orphans alive. As long as a baby is not within reach of a hostile creature, no harm will be done to it. "Job cancellation spam" can be generated as the baby is seen by the game to be "insane" (example: "Urist McBabyname, Dwarven baby, cancels Clean Self: Too Insane"), but once it reaches childhood (at 12 months), that will stop, and they go about their business like any other dwarven child. While dwarven children are dressed in red, a baby's clothes will be dark yellow.

The sex of a baby is determined upon birth; this means that [[Cheating#Savescumming|reloading a save]] before a baby's birth might get a baby of the other sex. After giving birth, it is possible for the mother to become pregnant again immediately, and give birth to another child nine months later.

Babies will crawl to burrows when assigned to them.

Any baby being carried by its mother will effectively leech [[food]] and [[Thirst|drink]] from her, causing her to become hungry or thirsty at double the usual rate. This does not, however, count as alcohol consumption – when a baby is close to 1 year old, it will have severe withdrawal.

Babies can gain memories, although it seems that only thoughts with strong emotions can become the memory of a baby. Many thoughts (with strong emotions), which can become a memory, are able to change the dwarf's values/facets (upon becoming a core memory). And since babies (and small children) will, if any, only have few memories, such memories will have a tremendous effect on the dwarf's happiness (as they will continuously remember the same few memories). Most of the thoughts associated with strong emotions (in a baby) are negative thoughts, and only a few are positive. Of the negative thoughts observed to become memories, aside from the (negative) ones known to be able to change the dwarf's values/facets, is being pestered by vermin (but this thought does rarely become a memory, but being aggrevated by vermin might be another matter as vermin generating such thoughts are hated by the dwarven baby). On the positive side, aside from gaining a sibling (which will usually change the dwarf's values/facets later on), being "near to a favorite (caged) creature" can become a memory (and presumly also being near to a waterfall {{verify}}). All of this means that it is not advised to let a baby-carrying mother (and thus the baby) be caught in the rain. But it might be a good idea to let the baby-carrying mother walk by a cage containing a favorite creature of the baby, as babies getting such a positive memory might be "fine" upon becoming a child (and not merely content or even unhappy). Also, babies can gain knowledge of dance, music and poetry forms by watching performances, although they supposedly cannot gain any other skills (except when eg. taken on a raid mission by their mother).

The first order of business when a baby becomes a child is to pick up their clothing. After finishing that task, the child will start to play in the tile they picked up the last piece of clothing (although they might fetch a toy beforehand). This behaviour, by proper stockpile placement (and stockpile links) and having enough mittens/cloaks/hoods, can be exploited, so that the former dwarven baby will always play in a guildhall after becoming a child.

==Labor==
In [[fortress mode]], children can be assigned the relatively minor labors designated chores, below, but will also perform a few simple tasks on their own, such as:

* Socializing in [[location]]s, also holding [[performance]]s like singing, or reciting poetry (and they can gain skill levels in dancing, poetry and musical instruments). But children can perform music that they know anywhere and everywhere (especially if it only requires one performer), they are not bound by meeting places or locations, but instead start singing in a bedroom or stockpile instead. But performing seems to be currently gated, ie. only children, that have a musician and/or singing skill, will perform music, which means that children born in the current fortress will not display that behaviour, but "void" dwarf children (migrants) can as they can be created with such performance skills.
* Picking out, and wearing, their own [[clothing]].
* Watching (and even leading) guild demonstrations, provided the guild is open to all citizens.
* Attending meetings to complain to someone in charge, if unhappy (ie. as a 1 year old due to being caught in the rain as a baby).
* Eating, drinking, and sleeping as necessary.
* [[Farming|Harvesting]] [[crops]], if the "All dwarves harvest" [[standing orders|order]] is on. This will also increase their [[planter]] skill, which only happens very sporadically in the current version.
* When they want to, storing their items, including toys (specifically, they may perform a Store Item in Bin order for multiple toys).
* Children can play with [[toy]]s, such as puzzle boxes or toy axes, and might also play make believe. Both are basically filler jobs without tangible benefits, except for usually giving the child a happy thought and so unstressing the child (although some children might not feel anything instead).
* Fighting or running from hostiles, depending on circumstances. (Since children are small, can't use armor or weapons, and all start without combat skills, don't expect them to be effective fighters. Nor, for that matter, can they be assigned to squads.)
* Children can enter [[strange mood]]s, going about them the same as an adult dwarf. If they did not watch any guild demonstrations in a moodable skill (prior to the strange mood), they will attempt to make one artifact appropriate for a [[bone carver]], [[wood crafter]], or [[stonecrafter]], otherwise they will create an artifact according to the highest moodable skill (normal strange mood rules apply). They will also gain experience as normal if they complete it, except for possessed moods.
* Children respect [[burrow]] restrictions, including civilian alerts.
* Attempting to [[swim]] if submerged in [[water]].

Children may not be assigned to the [[noble|nobility]] and cannot join any guild (even if legendary in one of the required skills). However, they ''can'' be assigned bedrooms - even though children might still choose to sleep in their parents' bedroom instead of their own. If no tasks are available, they will gladly loiter in meeting areas, like [[dining room]]s for example, for the duration of their youth. Children born in the fort tend to follow their mother by preference, even (especially?) if their mother is a soldier and is currently going into battle.

Children are also known to be invisible to [[vampire]]s, thus making excellent crime detectors, as they speak truthfully in all cases.

The game will create an [[announcement]] when children reach adulthood, and can be assigned labors. This announcement will not pause and/or center the screen by default.

==Chores==
There is a chores tab under Labor/Standing Orders that allows players to disable/enable the chore tasks, which are:

* [[Feed patients/prisoners]]
* [[Milking]]
* [[Stone hauling]]
* [[Wood hauling]]
* [[Item hauling]]
* [[Burial]]
* [[Food hauling]]
* [[Refuse hauling]]
* [[Furniture hauling]]
* [[Animal hauling]]
* [[Trade good hauling]]
* [[Water hauling]]
* [[Cleaning]]
* [[Lever operation]]

Children don't seem to like chores, adding to their [[stress]] level and possibly causing them to become depressed and moody, which, as true with any adult, can then result in a child committing various [[Justice#Crimes|crimes]]. Turning off chores (if only for your more stressed children) will help alleviate this issue - you must decide for yourself if the increased mood is worth the loss of their labor.

Consider turning off Refuse Hauling and Burial as well; children tend to accumulate bad thoughts when hauling corpses, which can stress them out even more than it does adults. Also, children tend to start playing immediately after finishing a task, so if you leave Refuse Hauling on, they may decide that the corpse pile is an excellent playground, adding to the problem.

Furthermore, do not expect children who are younger than 12 years to be as good at hauling as their adult counterparts with similar physical attributes, as they are smaller and size does matter when it comes to hauling. It is even worse for children before they are at least one year & 168 days old (528 days total), as this is another size cut point.

== Dwarven School (aka getting children to watch guild demonstrations) ==
Even though a real school for dwarven children does not exist yet, every guildhall (which is not only open for its members) can serve as a school for them. The only slight hurdles are having someone in the guildhall to teach lessons and getting the children to the guildhall (to study aka watch guild demonstrations). But both of these hurdles can be overcome easily.

First a big enough guildhall is needed and enough levers (preferably unlinked ones) installed in the guildhall, intended to be pulled by the dwarven children - these levers should not be assigned to anyone (of course other levers can be in the guildhall assigned to adult dwarves). If other levers are used for defenses etc. one lever for each such defensive purpose should preferably be located somewhere else, with nearby stockpiles for food and drink (and a few bedrooms for the defensive lever pullers) and a lockable door, so that some dwarves (needed to pull the defensive levers) can be locked in, when it is time to give some lessons to the children (and get them to the guildhall). Also, a work detail just for lever pulling should be created, and only the dwarves (locked in for the defensive lever duty) should be set to do these tasks (at least temporary). All other (adult) dwarves should not be allowed to pull any levers.

Temporarily set the intended teacher and some other adult dwarves (ie. substitute teachers) to not do any labors at all (not even hauling) and then also set them to do the lever-pulling work detail and set a few levers in the guildhall to be pulled (to get the teachers and substitute teachers into the guildhall). After they are in the guildhall, remove them from the lever pulling duty, and let them do some guild demonstrations.

Then disable all chores for children, except lever pulling (which needs to be enabled), and set all levers, which are unlined and not assigned to anyone, in the guildhall to be pulled. Every time a dwarven child takes up a task to pull any of the levers (can be seen in the task list) that dwarven child should be excluded from doing any chores at all (otherwise the dwarven child might decide to pull multiple levers). The child will still pull the lever (finish the current task) and then - unless the child spontaneously decides to pick-up equipment, eat, drink or sleep (in which case the chores for the child need to be enabled again)- the child will start socializing in the guild hall (at least if there is still a guild demonstration in progress or currently a new one is organized) and the child will watch the next guild demonstrations in the guildhall (usually until either the child decides to eat, drink, sleep, pickup some equipment, no new guild demonstrations are organized or some chores are again enabled for the child). This way more or less all children can be goaded into the guildhall to take some lessons (aka watch some guild demonstrations). When nearly all children are in the guildhall or have already watched some guild demonstrations, then the lever pulling of the adults can be reset to the original preference of the player and the locked (forbidden) door for the defensive lever pullers can be unlocked (unforbidden). Also after the player is satisfied with the learning progress of the children the original chores for the children can be set again - some children currently watching a guild demonstration can still be left to temporarily do not chores (if there are still some guild demonstrations in progress). Also the original labors of the teacher (and substitue teachers) can be enabled again.

''Note:'' If at any point, after some children have started watching guild demonstrations, for one reason or another no one is present to give another guild demonstration, then all children will usually decide that the lessons are over and will immediatly start to play (either in the guildhall or somewhere else). Which is the main reason, why there should be a teacher and substitue teachers present and the labors for these have to be temporarily disabled (so that they will only leave the guildhall to eat, drink, sleep or pick-up equipment).

==Dwarven parenthood==

In the eighth [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html DFTalk], it was mentioned that, due to a programming oversight, children's parents can become so preoccupied with finding their children that they can die of thirst.

==Too many children==
If there are too many children in the fort, [[FPS]] may suffer. [[Unfortunate accident|Removing]] children is difficult, as doing so may quickly lead to [[stress]]. One possibility is to [[burrow]] children outside to aid [[thief|snatchers]]. To prevent a large population of children in the first place, it is preferred to set the child and/or strict population capacities in the [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]].

In longer-running forts, when a parent has more than 10 children of one gender, the 11th onward will merely be referred to as "son" or "daughter". The exception to this is that the youngest will always be referred to as "youngest son" or "youngest daughter".

==Non-dwarven children==
[[Human]]s, goblins, [[Elf|elves]], [[kobold]]s and subterranean [[animal people]] follow the same aging progress of dwarves (born as babies, becoming children at a year old then become adults at eighteen). The same is true for some races of wild humanoid creatures and [[semi-megabeast]]s, though some possess shorter or longer child states than dwarves do, e.g. [[troll]]s become adults at the age of 10. Regardless of how long their child states are, intelligent non-dwarf children are functionally identical to their dwarven counterparts for gameplay purposes.

Young animals possess limited capabilities compared to their adult stages. Infant [[milk]]-bearing livestock can't be milked, young [[wool]]-bearing animals can't be [[shear]]ed, and bird and reptile hatchlings are unable to lay [[egg]]s. However, unlike intelligent creatures, almost all animals follow a different aging progress; they skip the baby stage entirely and are born as children, who become adults at only 1 year of age (though they usually don't stop growing in size until the age of 2). Certain exceptions exist, however, such as [[elephant]]s, who take 10 years to reach adulthood. Savage [[animal people]] versions of these animals follow this same aging progress.

Certain creatures possess no child state to speak of, and are technically adults at birth, having all the capabilities of an 'adul#t immediately after starting existing (though most of them are still subject to growing in size as they get older). These creatures include stuff like all species of snakes, [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[creeping eye]]s, [[magma crab]]s and most [[megabeast]]s. Inorganic creatures such as [[Gabbro man|gabbro men]], [[Fire man|fire men]] and [[Amethyst man|amethyst men]] also exist only as adults and never as children. If the creature born as an adult is an intelligent creature, they'll be born with generally mild levels in some skills.

Creatures capable of being [[invader]]s can do so regardless of age - as such, you may be attacked by a [[werebeast]] child, or a young [[roc]], [[giant]], [[cyclops]], [[ettin]] or [[minotaur]]. They will behave exactly like their adult counterparts, but will generally be easier to kill than adults due to their smaller size. Such cases are rare, as they require either children being infected by a werebeast and not dying in the process, or for megabeasts to breed, both being particularly uncommon occurrences.

If the mother of a child is not a historical figure (on birth of the child) the game will not keep track of the family relationship between parent and offspring. The game will also not keep track of offspring of male historical figures, unless the mother is already a historical figure at the time of the fertilization of the not yet laid eggs (in case of egg-layers) resp. at the time the pregnancy starts (non egg-layers).


{{Category|Dwarves}}
{{Category|Relationships}}
[[ru:Children]]

Seed

2026-05-13T20:24:45Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Superior|23:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)}}
{{av}}
:''Looking for information on world generation seeds? See [[Advanced_world_generation#Seed_notes|Advanced world generation]].''
:''For information on seed management, see [[How do I manage my seeds and crops]]?''
[[File:seeds_sprite_preview.png|right]]'''Seeds''' are used in [[farming]] to grow [[crop]]s - some can be used to make [[oil]]. They can be stored in [[bag]]s (100 seeds per bag), which can in turn be stored in [[barrel]]s or [[pot]]s (10 bags per barrel/pot). Different seeds generally can't be mixed within a bag, so storing seeds of 10 different types requires 10 (or more) different bags (though a bug does cause dwarves to combine seeds occasionally).

Seeds can be brought on embark, obtained by [[trading]], or be produced from plants acquired by [[plant gathering]] (or growing the respective [[crop]]s). When a plant is eaten or used in [[brewing]], [[milling]] or [[plant processing]], it leaves one or two plantable seeds (see below for details). The exceptions are [[valley herb]] and [[kobold bulb]], which will not leave behind seeds after processing. [[Cooking]] plants in a [[kitchen]] never produces seeds.

[[Tree]] seeds cannot currently be planted, though a few varieties, such as [[macadamia]]s and [[walnut]]s, are edible or cookable. Some seeds do not have a sprite assigned to them.

However, presently dwarves will rather starve than eat a seed raw.
Sadly, some seeds are completely worthless, based on them being unfarmable, inedible, and un-processable. For the moment these can be dumped/sold freely.

__TOC__
==Seed List==

{| border = 1 cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Seed type || Graphic || Edible Raw || Cookable || Farmable || Vermin Edible || Oil Seed || Raws/Menu Order || Worthless?
|-
|[[Abaca]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:abaca_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 092 || Yes
|-
|[[Acacia]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:acacia_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 153 || No
|-
|[[Oak|Acorns]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:oak_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 152 || No
|-
|[[Alfalfa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:alfalfa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 009 || No
|-
|[[Almond]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:almond_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 119 || No
|-
|[[Apple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:apple_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 120 || Yes
|-
|[[Apricot]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:abaca_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 121 || Yes
|-
|[[Artichoke]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:artichoke_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 035 || No
|-
|[[Asparagus]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:asparagus_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 036 || No
|-
|[[Avocado]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:avocado_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 103 || Yes
|-
|[[Bambara groundnut]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bambara_groundnut_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 037 || No
|-
|[[Banana]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:banana_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 093 || Yes
|-
|[[Barley]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 006 || No
|-
|[[Bayberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bayberry_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 122 || Yes
|-
|[[Beet]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:beet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 040 || No
|-
|[[Bilberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bilberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 087 || No
|-
|[[Bitter melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 041 || No
|-
|[[Bitter orange]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_orange_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 108 || Yes
|-
|[[Bitter vetch]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_vetch_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 016 || No
|-
|[[Blackberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blackberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 089 || No
|-
|[[Blade weed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blade_weed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 147 || No
|-
|[[Bloated tuber]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bloated_tuber_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 139 || No
|-
|[[Blood amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blood_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 018 || No
|-
|[[Blueberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blueberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 088 || No
|-
|[[Broad bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:broad_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 039 || No
|-
|[[Buckwheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:buckwheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 007 || No
|-
|[[Cabbage]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cabbage_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 042 || No
|-
|[[Cacao tree|Cacao]] beans || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cacao_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || No || No || 157 || No
|-
|[[Candlenut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:candlenut_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 155 || No
|-
|[[Caper]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:caper_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 043 || No
|-
|[[Carambola]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:carambola_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 094 || Yes
|-
|[[Wild carrot|Carrot]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:wild_carrot_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 044 || No
|-
|[[Cashew]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cashew_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No|| 095 || Yes
|-
|[[Cassava]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cassava_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 045 || No
|-
|[[Cave wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cave_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 135 || No
|-
|[[Celery]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:celery_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 046 || No
|-
|[[Cherry]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cherry_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 123 || Yes
|-
|[[Chestnut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chestnut_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 154 || No
|-
|[[Chickpea]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chickpea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 047 || No
|-
|[[Chicory]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chicory_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 048 || No
|-
|[[Citron]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:citron_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 106 || Yes
|-
|[[Coffee]] beans || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:coffee_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || No || No || 096 || Yes
|-
|[[Cotton]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cotton_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 031 || No
|-
|[[Cowpea]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cowpea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 049 || No
|-
|[[Cranberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cranberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 086 || No
|-
|[[Cucumber]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cucumber_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 050 || No
|-
|[[Custard-apple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:custard_apple_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 113 || Yes
|-
|[[Date palm]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:date_palm_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 114 || Yes
|-
|[[Desert lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:desert_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 111 || Yes
|-
|[[Dimple cup]] spawn || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:dimple_cup_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 146 || No
|-
|[[Durian]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:durian_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 097 || No
|-
|[[Eggplant]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:eggplant_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 051 || No
|-
|[[Elephant-head amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:elephant_head_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 021 || No
|-
|[[Finger lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:finger_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 109 || Yes
|-
|[[Finger millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:finger_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 024 || No
|-
|[[Fisher berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:fisher_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 144 || No
|-
|[[Flax]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:flax_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes|| 028 || No
|-
|[[Fonio]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:fonio_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 026 || No
|-
|[[Foxtail millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:foxtail_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 025 || No
|-
|[[Garden cress]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:garden_cress_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 052 || No
|-
|[[Garlic]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:garlic_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 053 || No
|-
|[[Ginkgo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:ginkgo_seeds2.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 124 || No
|-
|[[Grape]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:grape_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 085 || No
|-
|[[Guava]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:guava_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 098 || Yes
|-
|[[Hard wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 004 || No
|-
|[[Hazel]] nuts || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:guava_seeds.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 125 || No
|-
|[[Hemp]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:hemp_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 030 || No
|-
|[[Hide root]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:hide_root_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 148 || No
|-
|[[Horned melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:horned_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 054 || No
|-
|[[Jute]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:jute_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 029 || No
|-
|[[Kaniwa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kaniwa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 015 || No
|-
|[[Kenaf]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kenaf_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 033 || No
|-
|[[Kumquat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kumquat_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 112 || Yes
|-
|[[Leek]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:leek_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 055 || No
|-
|[[Lentil]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lentil_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 056 || No
|-
|[[Lesser yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lesser_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 080 || No
|-
|[[Lettuce]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lettuce_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 057 || No
|-
|[[Lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 104 || Yes
|-
|[[Long yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:long_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 081 || No
|-
|[[Longland grass]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:longland_grass_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 142 || No
|-
|[[Lychee]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lychee_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 115 || Yes
|-
|[[Macadamia]] nuts || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:macadamia_seeds.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 116 || No
|-
|[[Maize]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:maize_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 013 || No
|-
|[[Mango tree|Mango]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:mango_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 156 || Yes
|-
|[[Muck root]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:muck_root_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 138 || No
|-
|[[Mung bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:mung_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 058 || No
|-
|[[Muskmelon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:muskmelon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 059 || No
|-
|[[Oats]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:oats_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 008 || No
|-
|[[Olive]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:olive_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 117 || Yes
|-
|[[Onion]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:onion_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 060 || No
|-
|[[Orange]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:orange_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 107 || Yes
|-
|[[Papaya]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:papaya_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 099 || Yes
|-
|[[Papyrus sedge]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:papyrus_sedge_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 034 || No
|-
|[[Paradise nut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:paradise_nut_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 100 || Yes
|-
|[[Parsnip]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:parsnip_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 061 || No
|-
|[[Passion fruit]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:passion_fruit_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 084 || No
|-
|[[Pea]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 062 || No
|-
|[[Peach]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:peach_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 126 || Yes
|-
|[[Peanut|Peanuts]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:peanut_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 063 || No
|-
|[[Pear]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pear_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 127 || Yes
|-
|[[Pearl millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pearl_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 022 || No
|-
|[[Pecan]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pecan_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 128 || No
|-
|[[Pendant amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pendant_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 017 || No
|-
|[[Pepper]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pepper_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 064 || No
|-
|[[Persimmon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:persimmon_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 129 || Yes
|-
|[[Pig tail]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pig_tail_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 134 || No
|-
|[[Pineapple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pineapple_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 091 || No
|-
|[[Plum]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:plum_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 130 || Yes
|-
|[[Plump helmet]] spawn || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:plump_helmet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 133 || No
|-
|[[Pomegranate]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pomegranate_seeds2.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 118 || Yes
|-
|[[Pomelo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pomelo_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 105 || Yes
|-
|[[Potato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:potato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 065 || No
|-
|[[Prickle berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:prickle_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 140 || No
|-
|[[Purple amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:purple_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 019 || No
|-
|[[Purple yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:purple_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 082 || No
|-
|[[Quinoa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:quinoa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 014 || No
|-
|[[Radish]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:radish_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 066 || No
|-
|[[Rambutan]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rambutan_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 101 || No
|-
|[[Ramie]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:ramie_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 032 || No
|-
|[[Raspberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:raspberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 090 || No
|-
|[[Rat weed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rat_weed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 143 || No
|-
|[[Red bean]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:red_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 067 || No
|-
|[[Red spinach]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:red_spinach_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 020 || No
|-
|[[Rhubarb]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rhubarb_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 068 || No
|-
|[[Rice]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rice_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 012 || No
|-
|[[Quarry bush|Rock nuts]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:quarry_bush_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 137 || No
|-
|[[Rope reed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rope_reed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 145 || No
|-
|[[Round lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:round_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 110 || Yes
|-
|[[Rye]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rye_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 010 || No
|-
|[[Sand pear]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sand_pear_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 131 || Yes
|-
|[[Single-grain wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 001 || No
|-
|[[Sliver barb]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sliver_barb_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 149 || No
|-
|[[Soft wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 003 || No
|-
|[[Sorghum]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sorghum_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 011 || No
|-
|[[Soybean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:soybean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 069 || No
|-
|[[Spelt]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 005 || No
|-
|[[Spinach]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:spinach_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 070 || No
|-
|[[Squash]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:squash_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 071 || No
|-
|[[Strawberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:strawberry_fruit_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 141 || No
|-
|[[String bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:string_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 038 || No
|-
|[[Sun berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sun_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 150 || No
|-
|[[Sweet pod]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sweet_pod_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 136 || No
|-
|[[Sweet potato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sweet_potato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 072 || No
|-
|[[Taro]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:taro_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 073 || No
|-
|[[Tea]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tea_sprite.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 102 || Yes
|-
|[[Teff]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:teff_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 027 || No
|-
|[[Tomatillo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tomatillo_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 075 || No
|-
|[[Tomato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tomato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 074 || No
|-
|[[Turnip]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:turnip_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 076 || No
|-
|[[Two-grain wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 002 || No
|-
|[[Urad bean]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:urad_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 077 || No
|-
|[[Walnut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:walnut_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 132 || No
|-
|[[Watermelon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:watermelon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 078 || No
|-
|[[Whip vine]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:whip_vine_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 151 || No
|-
|[[White millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:white_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 023 || No
|-
|[[White yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:white_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 083 || No
|-
|[[Winter melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:winter_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 079 || No
|}

==Seed Production==
Seeds are produced by [[brewing]] (at a [[still]]), [[milling]] (at a [[millstone]] or [[quern]]), [[Plant processing|processing]] (at a [[farmer's workshop]]), or by dwarves eating the plants raw (uncooked). Note that cooking (at a [[kitchen]]) and make dye jobs (at a [[Dyer's shop]]) do *not* produce seeds. For information on where to grow, gather, or process specific plants, consult the specific plant's page or the general [[crop]]s page.

In order to prevent your fortress becoming cluttered with millions of seeds, there is a cap of 200 seeds for each plant species and a global cap of 3000 seeds. Both of these limits can be modified in the [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]]. The maximum global seed cap is 30,000. Seed-producing activities will only produce seeds if your fortress contains fewer than 200 seeds of that species. You can exceed the individual species seed cap by buying seeds from caravans, and seed production will restart when your stocks fall below the cap. If the number of seeds in the fortress exceed the global seed cap, seeds will be deleted from the species with the highest number of seeds in stock. If two or more species are tied for the highest number of seeds, it will bounce between them, lowering the number of seeds equally until under the global seed cap and including more species as they reach equivalent stock amounts. Note that this removal may affect "strategic seed stockpiles" (i.e. seeds forbidden from use in case of typical dwarven culinary stupidity). While at the global seed cap merchants will not bring seeds in trade.

'''Note:''' In case you are confused about getting spam of messages like "Urist McFarmer cancels Plant seeds: Needs [seed name]", while you are sure that you have enough seeds, no burrow restrictions or closed doors, the reason for this is most likely: the haulers see a seed somewhere and take the '''whole seed bag''' from stockpile to go pick it up, making the farmer cancel his job. The problem is exacerbated when barrels are used on the seed stockpile, because the dwarves will additionally store the seed bags inside barrels, blocking even more seeds during each hauling job and extending hauling jobs by first bringing the seed bag to the seed, then returning to the stockpile, picking up the barrel to bring it to the bag, storing the bag in the barrel and only then bringing the barrel bag to the stockpile. During all this time, the seed barrel and all its contents will be blocked from access by any other job.

You can simply disallow barrels from the stockpile, which requires a somewhat larger stockpile but makes seed collection jobs much shorter and less disruptive. Bags will always be used to store seeds in stockpiles, you cannot forbid that.

Another way to deal with this problem is this: set up 2 seed stockpiles, with the larger (primary) one set to only accept items from links ([[File:V50_stockpile_workshop_button.png]]). Set the secondary (smaller) pile to take from anywhere and [[File:V50_stockpile_take_button.png]] give to the main stockpile. Now, when a seed shows up in your dining room or brewery, the dwarves should try to put it into the secondary pile first, which shouldn't have anything in it for long (so no bag for world tour). Once the seed arrives in the secondary stockpile, a new job will be created, moving the seed over into the main stockpile. Now the bag will be picked up to move that seed into it, but if the piles are next to each other it should only be in transit for a few seconds reducing the likelihood of cancellation spam.

As a workaround, you can finally make use of the peculiarities of stockpile commands: setting a stockpile to "take" from a mill, still or farmer's workshop will prevent the workshop from sending its products to any other stockpile. If the stockpile in question doesn't accept seeds, all seeds produced by the workshop will stay in the building, readily accessible to farmers. This can be handy if the workshop is directly adjacent to the farm plot, but can cause cluttering of the workshop if other products like barrels of booze aren't moved out of the shop regularly.

{{Translation
| dwarven = lenod
| elvish = are
| goblin = ösmosp
| human = ase
}}

==Bugs==
*Dwarves compulsively store seeds in bags.{{bug|7869}}
*Planted seeds removed from field by seed cap.{{bug|8107}} (Fixed in version 51.06.)
*Seeds carried by merchants count against fortress seed cap.{{bug|8108}} (Fixed in version 51.06: Merchants no longer bring seeds when at seed cap.)
*Conflict between the two seed caps can remove an entire type of seed.{{bug|8091}} (Fixed in version 51.06.)

[[File:India_-_Varanasi_green_peas_-_2714.jpg|thumb|350px|center|Some seeds are edible, either raw or cooked.]]
{{gamedata}}
{{materials}}
[[ru:Seed]]

Children

2026-05-13T18:39:00Z

Silverwing235: /* Babies */

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
[[File:child_sprite_preview.png|right]]
Most [[creature]]s, including [[dwarf|dwarves]], start out as infants, then after a certain number of years become '''children''', and after that become adults - for dwarves, childhood starts after reaching one year of age, and continues until age 18.

In fortress mode, some migrant dwarves are [[marriage|married]] and may bring children. Children who immigrate to your [[fortress]] might be any age from one to 17. You can determine the age of any child by viewing their [[thoughts and preferences|thoughts]] screen, which will give you the child's exact age as well as their date of birth. This information is visible regardless of whether or not the child was born in your fortress.

"Resident" heterosexually [[marriage|married]] female dwarves may also give birth to children. Dwarves can even have [[miscarriage]]s (if they become dehydrated, starving, or are subjected to certain types of physical trauma), which causes an unhappy thought for the mother, but not for the father.

Much of [[goblin]] society is centered around [[thief|stealing the children]] of other races. The appropriate response to a baby-snatcher appearing on the map is the judicious use of [[magma|dwarven diplomacy]].

Humanoid creatures (the five main species) that are children or babies will appear as unique smaller sprites, and will appear to be wearing red if the option to show worn clothing dyes is disabled. Young animals and other creatures will have a smaller sprite than their adult counterparts, with some of them having baby sprites as well. Curiously enough, portraits can still show dwarven children with facial hair.
{{Translation
| dwarven = tilat
| elvish = imi
| goblin = tox
| human = shin
}}
==Babies==
[[File:dwarf_children.jpg|thumb|260px|right|Before they grow up to realize they're in an unwinnable game. ''Art by Devilingo'']][[File:df_baby_list.png|thumb|260px|right|Many children and a baby seen in the citizen information menu.]][[File:dwarf_child_portrait.png|thumb|96px|right|Portrait of a dwarven child.]]Babies do not have to be born in [[bed]]s, but are born wherever the mother happens to be, which will interrupt most current actions of the mother. The game will play the birth sound effect and [[announcement|announce]] the arrival of the baby. The mother will cancel whatever task she was in the middle of to seek her infant, and then will ''usually'' resume whatever task she was doing before the child was born. It is possible for dwarven mothers to give birth to twins or triplets, although that is exceedingly rare (1 out of 500), due to their [MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE] token. Babies are looked after by their mother, who will continue working while carrying the babies.

[[Unconscious]] mothers will not wake up when they give birth – [[sleep]]ing and resting in a [[hospital]] will not be interrupted. Dwarves in a [[strange mood]] will also not interrupt their mood when giving birth – cancelling a mood forces instant insanity, so it is likely a coding choice to protect mothers (and children). Imprisoned mothers can grab their child if they give birth while on a chain, but cannot retrieve an infant that is out of their reach, which can cause massive problems, since a mother carrying a child is forced to drop it before being brought to prison. Most jobs performed by a mother upon giving birth will be immediatly cancelled to pick up the baby, but for instance a current haul animal job, where the mother is already leading the animal, will not be cancelled, but will be finished before the infant is picked up.

If the mother is sleeping or otherwise prevented from collecting her infant, the baby will be free to roam as it pleases. An emancipated baby acts in a similar manner to a [[insanity|raving mad]] adult, wandering freely over the map without any sense of self-preservation, gravitating to [[Activity_zone#Meeting_area|meeting zone]]s. It may be fed and watered by other dwarves, and in recent versions, such care happens regularly enough to keep orphans alive. As long as a baby is not within reach of a hostile creature, no harm will be done to it. "Job cancellation spam" can be generated as the baby is seen by the game to be "insane" (example: "Urist McBabyname, Dwarven baby, cancels Clean Self: Too Insane"), but once it reaches childhood (at 12 months), that will stop, and they go about their business like any other dwarven child. While dwarven children are dressed in red, a baby's clothes will be dark yellow.

The sex of a baby is determined upon birth; this means that [[Cheating#Savescumming|reloading a save]] before a baby's birth might get a baby of the other sex. After giving birth, it is possible for the mother to become pregnant again immediately, and give birth to another child nine months later.

Babies will crawl to burrows when assigned to them.

Any baby being carried by its mother will effectively leech [[food]] and [[Thirst|drink]] from her, causing her to become hungry or thirsty at double the usual rate. This does not, however, count as alcohol consumption – when a baby is close to 1 year old, it will have severe withdrawal.

Babies can gain memories, although it seems that only thoughts with strong emotions can become the memory of a baby. Many thoughts (with strong emotions), which can become a memory, are able to change the dwarf's values/facets (upon becoming a core memory). And since babies (and small children) will, if any, only have few memories, such memories will have a tremendous effect on the dwarf's happiness (as they will continuously remember the same few memories). Most of the thoughts associated with strong emotions (in a baby) are negative thoughts, and only a few are positive. Of the negative thoughts observed to become memories, aside from the (negative) ones known to be able to change the dwarf's values/facets, is being pestered by vermin (but this thought does rarely become a memory, but being aggrevated by vermin might be another matter as vermin generating such thoughts are hated by the dwarven baby). On the positive side, aside from gaining a sibling (which will usually change the dwarf's values/facets later on), being "near to a favorite (caged) creature" can become a memory (and presumly also being near to a waterfall {{verify}}). All of this means that it is not advised to let a baby-carrying mother (and thus the baby) be caught in the rain. But it might be a good idea to let the baby-carrying mother walk by a cage containing a favorite creature of the baby, as babies getting such a positive memory might be "fine" upon becoming a child (and not merely content or even unhappy). Also, babies can gain knowledge of dance, music and poetry forms by watching performances, although they supposedly cannot gain any other skills (except when eg. taken on a raid mission by their mother).

The first order of business when a baby becomes a child is to pick up their clothing. After finishing that task, the child will start to play in the tile they picked up the last piece of clothing (although they might fetch a toy beforehand). This behaviour, by proper stockpile placement (and stockpile links) and having enough mittens/cloaks/hoods, can be exploited, so that the former dwarven baby will always play in a guildhall after becoming a child.

==Labor==
In [[fortress mode]], children can be assigned the relatively minor labors designated chores, below, but will also perform a few simple tasks on their own, such as:

* Socializing in [[location]]s, also holding [[performance]]s like singing, or reciting poetry (and they can gain skill levels in dancing, poetry and musical instruments). But children can perform music that they know anywhere and everywhere (especially if it only requires one performer), they are not bound by meeting places or locations, but instead start singing in a bedroom or stockpile instead. But performing seems to be currently gated, ie. only children, that have a musician and/or singing skill, will perform music, which means that children born in the current fortress will not display that behaviour, but "void" dwarf children (migrants) can as they can be created with such performance skills.
* Picking out, and wearing, their own [[clothing]].
* Watching (and even leading) guild demonstrations, provided the guild is open to all citizens.
* Attending meetings to complain to someone in charge, if unhappy (ie. as a 1 year old due to being caught in the rain as a baby).
* Eating, drinking, and sleeping as necessary.
* [[Farming|Harvesting]] [[crops]], if the "All dwarves harvest" [[standing orders|order]] is on. This will also increase their [[planter]] skill, which only happens very sporadically in the current version.
* When they want to, storing their items, including toys (specifically, they may perform a Store Item in Bin order for multiple toys).
* Children can play with [[toy]]s, such as puzzle boxes or toy axes, and might also play make believe. Both are basically filler jobs without tangible benefits, except for usually giving the child a happy thought and so unstressing the child (although some children might not feel anything instead).
* Fighting or running from hostiles, depending on circumstances. (Since children are small, can't use armor or weapons, and all start without combat skills, don't expect them to be effective fighters. Nor, for that matter, can they be assigned to squads.)
* Children can enter [[strange mood]]s, going about them the same as an adult dwarf. If they did not watch any guild demonstrations in a moodable skill (prior to the strange mood), they will attempt to make one artifact appropriate for a [[bone carver]], [[wood crafter]], or [[stonecrafter]], otherwise they will create an artifact according to the highest moodable skill (normal strange mood rules apply). They will also gain experience as normal if they complete it, except for possessed moods.
* Children respect [[burrow]] restrictions, including civilian alerts.
* Attempting to [[swim]] if submerged in [[water]].

Children may not be assigned to the [[noble|nobility]] and cannot join any guild (even if legendary in one of the required skills). However, they ''can'' be assigned bedrooms - even though children might still choose to sleep in their parents' bedroom instead of their own. If no tasks are available, they will gladly loiter in meeting areas, like [[dining room]]s for example, for the duration of their youth. Children born in the fort tend to follow their mother by preference, even (especially?) if their mother is a soldier and is currently going into battle.

Children are also known to be invisible to [[vampire]]s, thus making excellent crime detectors, as they speak truthfully in all cases.

The game will create an [[announcement]] when children reach adulthood, and can be assigned labors. This announcement will not pause and/or center the screen by default.

==Chores==
There is a chores tab under Labor/Standing Orders that allows players to disable/enable the chore tasks, which are:

* [[Feed patients/prisoners]]
* [[Milking]]
* [[Stone hauling]]
* [[Wood hauling]]
* [[Item hauling]]
* [[Burial]]
* [[Food hauling]]
* [[Refuse hauling]]
* [[Furniture hauling]]
* [[Animal hauling]]
* [[Trade good hauling]]
* [[Water hauling]]
* [[Cleaning]]
* [[Lever operation]]

Children don't seem to like chores, adding to their [[stress]] level and possibly causing them to become depressed and moody, which, as true with any adult, can then result in a child committing various [[Justice#Crimes|crimes]]. Turning off chores (if only for your more stressed children) will help alleviate this issue - you must decide for yourself if the increased mood is worth the loss of their labor.

Consider turning off Refuse Hauling and Burial as well; children tend to accumulate bad thoughts when hauling corpses, which can stress them out even more than it does adults. Also, children tend to start playing immediately after finishing a task, so if you leave Refuse Hauling on, they may decide that the corpse pile is an excellent playground, adding to the problem.

Furthermore, do not expect children who are younger than 12 years to be as good at hauling as their adult counterparts with similar physical attributes, as they are smaller and size does matter when it comes to hauling. It is even worse for children before they are at least one year & 168 days old (528 days total), as this is another size cut point.

== Dwarven School (aka getting children to watch guild demonstrations) ==
Even though a real school for dwarven children does not exist yet, every guildhall (which is not only open for its members) can serve as a school for them. The only slight hurdles are having someone in the guildhall to teach lessons and getting the children to the guildhall (to study aka watch guild demonstrations). But both of these hurdles can be overcome easily.

First a big enough guildhall is needed and enough levers (preferably unlinked ones) installed in the guildhall, intended to be pulled by the dwarven children - these levers should not be assigned to anyone (of course other levers can be in the guildhall assigned to adult dwarves). If other levers are used for defenses etc. one lever for each such defensive purpose should preferably be located somewhere else, with nearby stockpiles for food and drink (and a few bedrooms for the defensive lever pullers) and a lockable door, so that some dwarves (needed to pull the defensive levers) can be locked in, when it is time to give some lessons to the children (and get them to the guildhall). Also, a work detail just for lever pulling should be created, and only the dwarves (locked in for the defensive lever duty) should be set to do these tasks (at least temporary). All other (adult) dwarves should not be allowed to pull any levers.

Temporarily set the intended teacher and some other adult dwarves (ie. substitute teachers) to not do any labors at all (not even hauling) and then also set them to do the lever-pulling work detail and set a few levers in the guildhall to be pulled (to get the teachers and substitute teachers into the guildhall). After they are in the guildhall, remove them from the lever pulling duty, and let them do some guild demonstrations.

Then disable all chores for children, except lever pulling (which needs to be enabled), and set all levers, which are unlined and not assigned to anyone, in the guildhall to be pulled. Every time a dwarven child takes up a task to pull any of the levers (can be seen in the task list) that dwarven child should be excluded from doing any chores at all (otherwise the dwarven child might decide to pull multiple levers). The child will still pull the lever (finish the current task) and then - unless the child spontaneously decides to pick-up equipment, eat, drink or sleep (in which case the chores for the child need to be enabled again)- the child will start socializing in the guild hall (at least if there is still a guild demonstration in progress or currently a new one is organized) and the child will watch the next guild demonstrations in the guildhall (usually until either the child decides to eat, drink, sleep, pickup some equipment, no new guild demonstrations are organized or some chores are again enabled for the child). This way more or less all children can be goaded into the guildhall to take some lessons (aka watch some guild demonstrations). When nearly all children are in the guildhall or have already watched some guild demonstrations, then the lever pulling of the adults can be reset to the original preference of the player and the locked (forbidden) door for the defensive lever pullers can be unlocked (unforbidden). Also after the player is satisfied with the learning progress of the children the original chores for the children can be set again - some children currently watching a guild demonstration can still be left to temporarily do not chores (if there are still some guild demonstrations in progress). Also the original labors of the teacher (and substitue teachers) can be enabled again.

''Note:'' If at any point, after some children have started watching guild demonstrations, for one reason or another no one is present to give another guild demonstration, then all children will usually decide that the lessons are over and will immediatly start to play (either in the guildhall or somewhere else). Which is the main reason, why there should be a teacher and substitue teachers present and the labors for these have to be temporarily disabled (so that they will only leave the guildhall to eat, drink, sleep or pick-up equipment).

==Dwarven parenthood==

In the eighth [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html DFTalk], it was mentioned that, due to a programming oversight, children's parents can become so preoccupied with finding their children that they can die of thirst.

==Too many children==
If there are too many children in the fort, [[FPS]] may suffer. [[Unfortunate accident|Removing]] children is difficult, as doing so may quickly lead to [[stress]]. One possibility is to [[burrow]] children outside to aid [[thief|snatchers]]. To prevent a large population of children in the first place, it is preferred to set the child and/or strict population capacities in the [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]].

In longer-running forts, when a parent has more than 10 children of one gender, the 11th onward will merely be referred to as "son" or "daughter". The exception to this is that the youngest will always be referred to as "youngest son" or "youngest daughter".

==Non-dwarven children==
[[Human]]s, goblins, [[Elf|elves]], [[kobold]]s and subterranean [[animal people]] follow the same aging progress of dwarves (born as babies, becoming children at a year old then become adults at eighteen). The same is true for some races of wild humanoid creatures and [[semi-megabeast]]s, though some possess shorter or longer child states than dwarves do, e.g. [[troll]]s become adults at the age of 10. Regardless of how long their child states are, intelligent non-dwarf children are functionally identical to their dwarven counterparts for gameplay purposes.

Young animals possess limited capabilities compared to their adult stages. Infant [[milk]]-bearing livestock can't be milked, young [[wool]]-bearing animals can't be [[shear]]ed, and bird and reptile hatchlings are unable to lay [[egg]]s. However, unlike intelligent creatures, almost all animals follow a different aging progress; they skip the baby stage entirely and are born as children, who become adults at only 1 year of age (though they usually don't stop growing in size until the age of 2). Certain exceptions exist, however, such as [[elephant]]s, who take 10 years to reach adulthood. Savage [[animal people]] versions of these animals follow this same aging progress.

Certain creatures possess no child state to speak of, and are technically adults at birth, having all the capabilities of an adult immediately after starting existing (though most of them are still subject to growing in size as they get older). These creatures include stuff like all species of snakes, [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[creeping eye]]s, [[magma crab]]s and most [[megabeast]]s. Inorganic creatures such as [[Gabbro man|gabbro men]], [[Fire man|fire men]] and [[Amethyst man|amethyst men]] also exist only as adults and never as children. If the creature born as an adult is an intelligent creature, they'll be born with generally mild levels in some skills.

Creatures capable of being [[invader]]s can do so regardless of age - as such, you may be attacked by a [[werebeast]] child, or a young [[roc]], [[giant]], [[cyclops]], [[ettin]] or [[minotaur]]. They will behave exactly like their adult counterparts, but will generally be easier to kill than adults due to their smaller size. Such cases are rare, as they require either children being infected by a werebeast and not dying in the process, or for megabeasts to breed, both being particularly uncommon occurrences.

If the mother of a child is not a historical figure (on birth of the child) the game will not keep track of the family relationship between parent and offspring. The game will also not keep track of offspring of male historical figures, unless the mother is already a historical figure at the time the fertilization of the not yet laid eggs (in case of egg-layers) resp. at the time the pregnancy starts (non egg-layers).


{{Category|Dwarves}}
{{Category|Relationships}}
[[ru:Children]]

Seed

2026-05-13T16:02:40Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Superior|23:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)}}
{{av}}
:''Looking for information on world generation seeds? See [[Advanced_world_generation#Seed_notes|Advanced world generation]].''
:''For information on seed management, see [[How do I manage my seeds and crops]]?''
[[File:seeds_sprite_preview.png|right]]'''Seeds''' are used in [[farming]] to grow [[crop]]s - some can be used to make [[oil]]. They can be stored in [[bag]]s (100 seeds per bag), which can in turn be stored in [[barrel]]s or [[pot]]s (10 bags per barrel/pot). Different seeds generally can't be mixed within a bag, so storing seeds of 10 different types requires 10 (or more) different bags (though a bug does cause dwarves to combine seeds occasionally).

Seeds can be brought on embark, obtained by [[trading]], or be produced from plants acquired by [[plant gathering]] (or growing the respective [[crop]]s). When a plant is eaten or used in [[brewing]], [[milling]] or [[plant processing]], it leaves one or two plantable seeds (see below for details). The exceptions are [[valley herb]] and [[kobold bulb]], which will not leave behind seeds after processing. [[Cooking]] plants in a [[kitchen]] never produces seeds.

[[Tree]] seeds cannot currently be planted, though a few varieties, such as [[macadamia]] nuts and [[walnut]]s, are edible or cookable. Some seeds do not have a sprite assigned to them.

However, presently dwarves will rather starve than eat a seed raw.
Sadly, some seeds are completely worthless, based on them being unfarmable, inedible, and un-processable. For the moment these can be dumped/sold freely.

__TOC__
==Seed List==

{| border = 1 cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Seed type || Graphic || Edible Raw || Cookable || Farmable || Vermin Edible || Oil Seed || Raws/Menu Order || Worthless?
|-
|[[Abaca]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:abaca_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 092 || Yes
|-
|[[Acacia]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:acacia_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 153 || No
|-
|[[Oak|Acorns]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:oak_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 152 || No
|-
|[[Alfalfa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:alfalfa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 009 || No
|-
|[[Almond]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:almond_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 119 || No
|-
|[[Apple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:apple_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 120 || Yes
|-
|[[Apricot]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:abaca_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 121 || Yes
|-
|[[Artichoke]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:artichoke_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 035 || No
|-
|[[Asparagus]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:asparagus_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 036 || No
|-
|[[Avocado]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:avocado_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 103 || Yes
|-
|[[Bambara groundnut]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bambara_groundnut_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 037 || No
|-
|[[Banana]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:banana_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 093 || Yes
|-
|[[Barley]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 006 || No
|-
|[[Bayberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bayberry_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 122 || Yes
|-
|[[Beet]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:beet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 040 || No
|-
|[[Bilberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bilberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 087 || No
|-
|[[Bitter melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 041 || No
|-
|[[Bitter orange]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_orange_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 108 || Yes
|-
|[[Bitter vetch]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bitter_vetch_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 016 || No
|-
|[[Blackberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blackberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 089 || No
|-
|[[Blade weed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blade_weed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 147 || No
|-
|[[Bloated tuber]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:bloated_tuber_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 139 || No
|-
|[[Blood amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blood_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 018 || No
|-
|[[Blueberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:blueberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 088 || No
|-
|[[Broad bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:broad_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 039 || No
|-
|[[Buckwheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:buckwheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 007 || No
|-
|[[Cabbage]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cabbage_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 042 || No
|-
|[[Cacao tree|Cacao]] beans || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cacao_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || No || No || 157 || No
|-
|[[Candlenut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:candlenut_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 155 || No
|-
|[[Caper]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:caper_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 043 || No
|-
|[[Carambola]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:carambola_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 094 || Yes
|-
|[[Wild carrot|Carrot]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:wild_carrot_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 044 || No
|-
|[[Cashew]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cashew_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No|| 095 || Yes
|-
|[[Cassava]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cassava_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 045 || No
|-
|[[Cave wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cave_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 135 || No
|-
|[[Celery]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:celery_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 046 || No
|-
|[[Cherry]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cherry_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 123 || Yes
|-
|[[Chestnut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chestnut_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 154 || No
|-
|[[Chickpea]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chickpea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 047 || No
|-
|[[Chicory]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:chicory_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 048 || No
|-
|[[Citron]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:citron_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 106 || Yes
|-
|[[Coffee]] beans || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:coffee_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || No || No || 096 || Yes
|-
|[[Cotton]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cotton_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 031 || No
|-
|[[Cowpea]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cowpea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 049 || No
|-
|[[Cranberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cranberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 086 || No
|-
|[[Cucumber]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:cucumber_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 050 || No
|-
|[[Custard-apple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:custard_apple_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 113 || Yes
|-
|[[Date palm]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:date_palm_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 114 || Yes
|-
|[[Desert lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:desert_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 111 || Yes
|-
|[[Dimple cup]] spawn || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:dimple_cup_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 146 || No
|-
|[[Durian]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:durian_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 097 || No
|-
|[[Eggplant]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:eggplant_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 051 || No
|-
|[[Elephant-head amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:elephant_head_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 021 || No
|-
|[[Finger lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:finger_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 109 || Yes
|-
|[[Finger millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:finger_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 024 || No
|-
|[[Fisher berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:fisher_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 144 || No
|-
|[[Flax]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:flax_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes|| 028 || No
|-
|[[Fonio]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:fonio_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 026 || No
|-
|[[Foxtail millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:foxtail_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 025 || No
|-
|[[Garden cress]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:garden_cress_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 052 || No
|-
|[[Garlic]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:garlic_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 053 || No
|-
|[[Ginkgo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:ginkgo_seeds2.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 124 || No
|-
|[[Grape]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:grape_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 085 || No
|-
|[[Guava]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:guava_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 098 || Yes
|-
|[[Hard wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 004 || No
|-
|[[Hazel]] nuts || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:guava_seeds.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 125 || No
|-
|[[Hemp]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:hemp_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 030 || No
|-
|[[Hide root]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:hide_root_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 148 || No
|-
|[[Horned melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:horned_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 054 || No
|-
|[[Jute]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:jute_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 029 || No
|-
|[[Kaniwa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kaniwa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 015 || No
|-
|[[Kenaf]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kenaf_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 033 || No
|-
|[[Kumquat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:kumquat_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 112 || Yes
|-
|[[Leek]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:leek_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 055 || No
|-
|[[Lentil]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lentil_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 056 || No
|-
|[[Lesser yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lesser_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 080 || No
|-
|[[Lettuce]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lettuce_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 057 || No
|-
|[[Lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 104 || Yes
|-
|[[Long yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:long_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 081 || No
|-
|[[Longland grass]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:longland_grass_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 142 || No
|-
|[[Lychee]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:lychee_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 115 || Yes
|-
|[[Macadamia]] nuts || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:macadamia_seeds.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 116 || No
|-
|[[Maize]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:maize_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 013 || No
|-
|[[Mango tree|Mango]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:mango_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 156 || Yes
|-
|[[Muck root]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:muck_root_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 138 || No
|-
|[[Mung bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:mung_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 058 || No
|-
|[[Muskmelon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:muskmelon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 059 || No
|-
|[[Oats]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:oats_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 008 || No
|-
|[[Olive]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:olive_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 117 || Yes
|-
|[[Onion]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:onion_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 060 || No
|-
|[[Orange]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:orange_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 107 || Yes
|-
|[[Papaya]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:papaya_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 099 || Yes
|-
|[[Papyrus sedge]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:papyrus_sedge_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 034 || No
|-
|[[Paradise nut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:paradise_nut_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 100 || Yes
|-
|[[Parsnip]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:parsnip_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 061 || No
|-
|[[Passion fruit]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:passion_fruit_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 084 || No
|-
|[[Pea]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pea_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 062 || No
|-
|[[Peach]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:peach_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 126 || Yes
|-
|[[Peanut|Peanuts]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:peanut_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 063 || No
|-
|[[Pear]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pear_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 127 || Yes
|-
|[[Pearl millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pearl_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 022 || No
|-
|[[Pecan]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pecan_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 128 || No
|-
|[[Pendant amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pendant_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 017 || No
|-
|[[Pepper]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pepper_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 064 || No
|-
|[[Persimmon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:persimmon_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 129 || Yes
|-
|[[Pig tail]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pig_tail_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 134 || No
|-
|[[Pineapple]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pineapple_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || Yes || No || 091 || No
|-
|[[Plum]] pits || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:plum_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 130 || Yes
|-
|[[Plump helmet]] spawn || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:plump_helmet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 133 || No
|-
|[[Pomegranate]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pomegranate_seeds2.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 118 || Yes
|-
|[[Pomelo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:pomelo_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 105 || Yes
|-
|[[Potato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:potato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 065 || No
|-
|[[Prickle berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:prickle_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 140 || No
|-
|[[Purple amaranth]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:purple_amaranth_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 019 || No
|-
|[[Purple yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:purple_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 082 || No
|-
|[[Quinoa]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:quinoa_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 014 || No
|-
|[[Radish]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:radish_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 066 || No
|-
|[[Rambutan]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rambutan_seeds.png]] || No || Yes || No || Yes || No || 101 || No
|-
|[[Ramie]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:ramie_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 032 || No
|-
|[[Raspberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:raspberry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 090 || No
|-
|[[Rat weed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rat_weed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 143 || No
|-
|[[Red bean]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:red_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 067 || No
|-
|[[Red spinach]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:red_spinach_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 020 || No
|-
|[[Rhubarb]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rhubarb_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 068 || No
|-
|[[Rice]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rice_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 012 || No
|-
|[[Quarry bush|Rock nuts]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:quarry_bush_seeds_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || Yes || 137 || No
|-
|[[Rope reed]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rope_reed_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 145 || No
|-
|[[Round lime]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:round_lime_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 110 || Yes
|-
|[[Rye]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:rye_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 010 || No
|-
|[[Sand pear]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sand_pear_seeds.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 131 || Yes
|-
|[[Single-grain wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 001 || No
|-
|[[Sliver barb]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sliver_barb_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 149 || No
|-
|[[Soft wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 003 || No
|-
|[[Sorghum]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sorghum_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 011 || No
|-
|[[Soybean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:soybean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 069 || No
|-
|[[Spelt]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 005 || No
|-
|[[Spinach]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:spinach_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 070 || No
|-
|[[Squash]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:squash_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 071 || No
|-
|[[Strawberry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:strawberry_fruit_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 141 || No
|-
|[[String bean]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:string_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 038 || No
|-
|[[Sun berry]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sun_berry_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 150 || No
|-
|[[Sweet pod]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sweet_pod_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 136 || No
|-
|[[Sweet potato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:sweet_potato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 072 || No
|-
|[[Taro]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:taro_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 073 || No
|-
|[[Tea]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tea_sprite.png]] || No || No || No || Yes || No || 102 || Yes
|-
|[[Teff]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:teff_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 027 || No
|-
|[[Tomatillo]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tomatillo_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 075 || No
|-
|[[Tomato]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:tomato_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 074 || No
|-
|[[Turnip]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:turnip_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 076 || No
|-
|[[Two-grain wheat]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:generic_wheat_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 002 || No
|-
|[[Urad bean]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:urad_bean_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 077 || No
|-
|[[Walnut]]s || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:walnut_sprite.png]] || Yes || Yes || No || Yes || No || 132 || No
|-
|[[Watermelon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:watermelon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 078 || No
|-
|[[Whip vine]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:whip_vine_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 151 || No
|-
|[[White millet]] || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:white_millet_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || No || 023 || No
|-
|[[White yam]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:white_yam_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 083 || No
|-
|[[Winter melon]] seeds || style="text-align:center;" | [[File:winter_melon_seeds_sprite.png]] || No || No || Yes || No || No || 079 || No
|}

==Seed Production==
Seeds are produced by [[brewing]] (at a [[still]]), [[milling]] (at a [[millstone]] or [[quern]]), [[Plant processing|processing]] (at a [[farmer's workshop]]), or by dwarves eating the plants raw (uncooked). Note that cooking (at a [[kitchen]]) and make dye jobs (at a [[Dyer's shop]]) do *not* produce seeds. For information on where to grow, gather, or process specific plants, consult the specific plant's page or the general [[crop]]s page.

In order to prevent your fortress becoming cluttered with millions of seeds, there is a cap of 200 seeds for each plant species and a global cap of 3000 seeds. Both of these limits can be modified in the [[Settings#Population_and_seed_capacities|settings]]. The maximum global seed cap is 30,000. Seed-producing activities will only produce seeds if your fortress contains fewer than 200 seeds of that species. You can exceed the individual species seed cap by buying seeds from caravans, and seed production will restart when your stocks fall below the cap. If the number of seeds in the fortress exceed the global seed cap, seeds will be deleted from the species with the highest number of seeds in stock. If two or more species are tied for the highest number of seeds, it will bounce between them, lowering the number of seeds equally until under the global seed cap and including more species as they reach equivalent stock amounts. Note that this removal may affect "strategic seed stockpiles" (i.e. seeds forbidden from use in case of typical dwarven culinary stupidity). While at the global seed cap merchants will not bring seeds in trade.

'''Note:''' In case you are confused about getting spam of messages like "Urist McFarmer cancels Plant seeds: Needs [seed name]", while you are sure that you have enough seeds, no burrow restrictions or closed doors, the reason for this is most likely: the haulers see a seed somewhere and take the '''whole seed bag''' from stockpile to go pick it up, making the farmer cancel his job. The problem is exacerbated when barrels are used on the seed stockpile, because the dwarves will additionally store the seed bags inside barrels, blocking even more seeds during each hauling job and extending hauling jobs by first bringing the seed bag to the seed, then returning to the stockpile, picking up the barrel to bring it to the bag, storing the bag in the barrel and only then bringing the barrel bag to the stockpile. During all this time, the seed barrel and all its contents will be blocked from access by any other job.

You can simply disallow barrels from the stockpile, which requires a somewhat larger stockpile but makes seed collection jobs much shorter and less disruptive. Bags will always be used to store seeds in stockpiles, you cannot forbid that.

Another way to deal with this problem is this: set up 2 seed stockpiles, with the larger (primary) one set to only accept items from links ([[File:V50_stockpile_workshop_button.png]]). Set the secondary (smaller) pile to take from anywhere and [[File:V50_stockpile_take_button.png]] give to the main stockpile. Now, when a seed shows up in your dining room or brewery, the dwarves should try to put it into the secondary pile first, which shouldn't have anything in it for long (so no bag for world tour). Once the seed arrives in the secondary stockpile, a new job will be created, moving the seed over into the main stockpile. Now the bag will be picked up to move that seed into it, but if the piles are next to each other it should only be in transit for a few seconds reducing the likelihood of cancellation spam.

As a workaround, you can finally make use of the peculiarities of stockpile commands: setting a stockpile to "take" from a mill, still or farmer's workshop will prevent the workshop from sending its products to any other stockpile. If the stockpile in question doesn't accept seeds, all seeds produced by the workshop will stay in the building, readily accessible to farmers. This can be handy if the workshop is directly adjacent to the farm plot, but can cause cluttering of the workshop if other products like barrels of booze aren't moved out of the shop regularly.

{{Translation
| dwarven = lenod
| elvish = are
| goblin = ösmosp
| human = ase
}}

==Bugs==
*Dwarves compulsively store seeds in bags.{{bug|7869}}
*Planted seeds removed from field by seed cap.{{bug|8107}} (Fixed in version 51.06.)
*Seeds carried by merchants count against fortress seed cap.{{bug|8108}} (Fixed in version 51.06: Merchants no longer bring seeds when at seed cap.)
*Conflict between the two seed caps can remove an entire type of seed.{{bug|8091}} (Fixed in version 51.06.)

[[File:India_-_Varanasi_green_peas_-_2714.jpg|thumb|350px|center|Some seeds are edible, either raw or cooked.]]
{{gamedata}}
{{materials}}
[[ru:Seed]]

Armor

2026-05-10T21:49:56Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Masterwork|20:10, 26 November 2025 (CST)}}
{{av}}
[[File:dwarf_armor_preview.png|right]]'''Armor''' is protective equipment used to reduce or deflect damage during [[combat]]. It comes in a variety of individual pieces that work together to cover a dwarf - there is no "suit of armor" in the sense of a single piece of equipment. Each armor piece protects a certain area or areas of a dwarf, and different pieces might cover a different collection of areas (see coverage chart below). The purpose of each piece is pretty much self-explanatory.

Loosely speaking, anything worn provides some protection, so it is considered "armor". In the [[stocks]] menu ({{k|k}}), each piece of armor is listed under the location where it is worn - "armor" being with other torso pieces, headwear, handwear, legwear, and footwear. However, this page will concentrate mostly just on combat-quality armor. Note that breastplates only protect upper/lower torso areas, while mail shirts also cover the neck, the upper arms, and the upper legs. (All this is explained below in more detail.)

Though many creatures, including non-humanoids, can wear all kinds of armor, it is only dwarves, [[human]]s, [[elf|elves]], [[kobold]]s and [[goblin]]s that will visually appear wearing different articles of armor. (This is because those aforementioned races have dedicated sprite sheets for each of them.) While other creatures ''can'' wear armor, it won't appear on their sprite, but clicking on them and checking their inventory can show they are wearing certain pieces of armor, even if it wouldn't make sense in real life.
__TOC__
== Basics ==
'''The actual effectiveness of a given piece of armor depends largely on the weapon/weapons being used against it.''' "Chain" pieces are flexible, and while good against slashing [[weapons]] (such as axes), they don't do much to stop the crushing force of blunt weapons (such as maces and hammers). "Solid" pieces (breastplates, greaves, gauntlets) are rigid, so they are more widely effective as protection against all weapons but are heavier. See the [[weapon]] article for more specific information.

Also, for slashing and piercing weapons (but not bludgeoning), the "armor vs. weapon" results are very dependent on the metal of each. A "better" metal will defeat a "lesser" armor, while a weapon of a lesser metal will be stopped more easily. For bludgeoning weapons, "weight" is the guiding rule, and all combat metals have roughly the same [[density|weight]]. See [[Weapon#Superior metal rule]] for further discussion.

Keeping in mind the enemies you are likely to meet, and how they will be armed, it is advisable to equip your militiadwarves with at least bronze or iron armor, as copper will quickly be outclassed against almost anything, except silver weapons and (most) animal attacks. Testing in the arena shows that armored dwarves have a huge advantage over unarmored ones, usually taking no casualties while making short work of their enemies. (But you shouldn't need this wiki to figure that out.) However, untrained dwarves will become encumbered and slowed down wearing armor due to lacking the [[armor user]] skill.

[[File:Armor Coverage Chart.png|thumb|550px|Dwarven armor coverage chart{{Verify|Chart has errors, see talk page}}]]

=== Purpose ===
[[File:armor_portrait_preview.png|right]]Armor's purpose is simple: to allow your dwarves to better withstand damage in combat. Where an unarmored dwarf would invariably suffer injury from a weapon strike, well-armored dwarves have a good chance of taking reduced damage or shrugging it off altogether. Potentially-damaging blows become mere bruises, and otherwise-lethal or incapacitating wounds are reduced to serious ones. [[Clothes]], though not specifically recognized by the game as armor, nonetheless function as such, and may block weak attacks.

While a clothed dwarf is a better fighter than a naked one, an unarmored dwarf will still succumb to a goblin [[ambush]] in seconds. One clad in a full set of exceptional-quality steel armor, however, can absorb most of a goblin squad's ammunition, and half a minute of its time, before finally being killed. Unarmored or lightly-armored dwarves may suffice to deal with lone thieves and the local wildlife, but a serious [[military|army]] requires equally serious armor.

=== Types of armor ===
In terms of classifications, armor can be thought of as having three different types: [[clothing]], [[leather]], or metal. When you first create any [[squad]] in your squad sidebar {{menu icon|q}}, you will have the choice to assign a default uniform - "No uniform" (assigning no additional equipment, i.e., keeping their civilian clothing, no weapon), "Leather armor" (leather pieces and a melee weapon), "Metal armor" (any metal pieces and a melee weapon), or "Archer" (which is identical to "Leather armor" but with a choice of ranged weapon).

You can make additional custom uniforms for this purpose and mix and match different armor types, but otherwise, these refer to the pieces and combinations described below.
----
'''Note:''' It is important to note that '''all''' predefined uniforms have the "uniform worn over clothes" option enabled. As a result, dwarves will be unable to equip additional footwear armor, as they keep their civilian footwear on, and it is not possible to wear 2 types of footwear on top of each other.
To edit any uniform and/or fix this problem:
*Select the squad wearing the uniform you wish to edit in the squad tab {{menu icon|q}}
*Click on "Equip" at the bottom of the tab
*Click on "Details" on any dwarf
*Click on "Uniform worn over clothing" to change it to "Uniform replaces clothing"
*Set a new name for the uniform
*Select "Confirm and save uniform"
*Assign the newly created uniform to the whole squad (Button "Assign uniform" -> Select from the list)
----
The first type of armor is [[clothing]], which is made of [[cloth]] at a [[clothier's shop]] or leather at a [[leather works]]. Clothing can usually* only deflect very weak attacks - say, a [[raven]] bite - but nonetheless can reduce damage. Most dwarves will be wearing clothing; those that aren't will usually be either very [[tantrum|unhappy]], [[children|babies]], or [[insane]]. All dwarves, both your initial 7 and [[migrants]], arrive with a full set of clothing (but it does [[Clothing#Wear|wear]] out, so you'll need to make or [[caravan|trade]] for more sooner or later).

:''(* [[Silk]] clothing is a little stronger against cutting/piercing attacks, but still far from "military grade" protection.)

The second type is [[leather]] and/or [[bone]] armor, which is specialized for the purpose of defense compared to standard clothing. It is also very weak and designed to protect against small- to medium-sized animal attacks; it provides almost no noticeable defense against larger animals or military weapons. Leather/bone armor is usually only used by [[hunter]]s, or as the very first armor that a fortress military uses, for defending against marauding [[Rhesus macaque|macaque]]s and the like. These can be made before any [[metal industry]] is up and running, and they only need the raw material ([[bone]] or [[Skin|tanned hide]]s) and a [[craftsdwarf's workshop]] or [[leather works]], respectively.

Note that [[clothing]] made from leather is ''not'' the same as "leather armor", even if it consumes identical raw material. Protective leather armor that can be produced from the [[leather works]] includes "leather armor" (referring to leather upper-body armor), leather leggings, leather boots (high and low), and leather helms - these items are forms of true "military" armor, and non-military dwarves will not pick them up to wear.

The last type is classic combat-quality [[metal]] armor. This armor is made by an [[armorsmith]] at a [[metalsmith's forge]] and should be the armor of choice for any serious military. This armor can further be broken down into two sub-types. Flexible "chain" armor pieces, either a shirt or leggings (only), are stronger than clothing against cutting weapons (axes, swords) but do little against blunt/crushing weapons (maces, hammers, flails, whips), though they are difficult to [[wear|destroy]] with blunt force as well. Rigid "plate" pieces provide the best all-around protection. Plate pieces include helmets, metal gauntlets, and boots - there are no "chain" versions for those pieces. A full suit might incorporate both, the plate pieces layered over the chain pieces, for the best of both worlds.

==== By location ====
Though all clothes can protect from damage, a "complete" suit of armor consists of the following pieces, one cell from each column.

{|border="1" cellpadding="5" style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;text-align:left"
|-
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | Torso
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | Head
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | Arm
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | Leg
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | Feet
! scope="col" style="background:#efefef;" | [[Shield|Shields]] (block attacks)
|-
|Leather armor (upper body + lower body)
|Cap
|Gloves (hands)
|Leggings, made of leather or chain
|Low boots (feet)
|Buckler
|-
|'''Mail shirt''' (upper body + lower body + neck + upper arms + upper legs) 
and/or '''Breastplate''' (upper body + lower body only)
|Helm
|Gauntlets (hands + wrists)
|Greaves, made of plate
|High boots (feet + lower legs)
|Shield
|}

The second row is the more effective choice, while the first row offers less protection, but does not slow down dwarves unskilled as "[[Combat_skill#Equipment_skills|armor users]]". Be aware that civilians will also pick up and wear leather caps and leather gloves; leather helms can be produced instead, as civilians will not equip helms, but this may slow your unskilled dwarves down.

Note that if a mail shirt is combined with high boots, explicit "leg" covering can be omitted. (Dwarves don't have knees to protect, so the upper leg is covered from the shirt and the lower leg from the boot for complete coverage; though using greaves is still recommended, as there can never be "enough armor" in the world of ''Dwarf Fortress'').

=== Armor skill ===
Attacking and being attacked with armor on gives 3 [[experience]] to the [[armor user]] [[skill]], with 9 more points if the attack actually hits armor. Whereas armor quality affects hit block chance, armor user skill affects how quickly the dwarf can move in their armor. In arena tests, a grand master armor user could move at twice the speed of a dabbling user when in heavy armor. Faster speed translates into faster movement, although only when walking around since the combat/movement speed split in 2014.

Every time a dwarf deflects an attack with their armor, it will be [[report]]ed as - for example - Dwarf 1 slashes Dwarf 2 in the upper body with his iron short sword, but the attack is deflected by Dwarf 2's small iron breastplate!, and the dwarf will receive 18 experience on top of the 12 mentioned before. The skill can be trained by attacking local wildlife, or through [[live training]] schemes.

=== Shield skill ===
Likewise, shield use trains the [[shield user]] [[skill]]. Shields are a special piece of armor that can be worn on one arm (and cannot be worn with two-handed weapons) and can be used to block attacks better than equivalent armor can (a difference amounting to deflection instead of broken bones), greatly increasing dwarven survivability. The skill modifies how often the dwarf will be able to block an attack with the shield, and it is likewise trained every time the shield is used to block an attack, at 30 experience apiece. It can be trained in the same ways.

=== Material ===
:''See also: [[Metal#Weapon and armor quality]]''

{| class="wikitable"
! Material !! Workshop !! Labor !! Notes
|-
| [[Metal]] || [[Metalsmith's forge]] || [[Armorsmith|Armoring]] || Best choice; see notes below
|-
| [[Bone]] || [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]] || [[Bone carver|Bone carving]] || Leggings, greaves, gauntlets, and helms only
|-
| [[Shell]] || [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]] || [[Bone carver|Bone carving]] || Leggings, gauntlets, and helms only
|-
| [[Leather]] || [[Leather works]] || [[Leatherworker|Leatherworking]] || Light and unencumbering but weak protection.
|-
| [[Cloth]] || [[Clothier's shop]] || [[Clothier|Clothesmaking]] || Limited protection, nearly useless against metal.
|-
| [[Wood]] || [[Carpenter's workshop]] || [[Carpentry]] || Shield/buckler only (except [[Elf|elves]])
|}

Armor can be made out of non-metallic, inferior (but sometimes plentiful) material, such as [[bone]], [[shell]], or [[leather]] (and wooden armor can sometimes be acquired from elven [[caravan]]s). This armor is only effective against the weakest "natural" attacks - small animals (smaller than a dwarf), or the sort of [[wrestling|rare accidents]] that can occur during [[Military quickstart#Melee Training|military training]]. However, that small level of protection can be critical for [[hunter]]s and your military trainees, to avoid the rare fatal or crippling injury that can occur when unarmored. Having an artery opened by a feisty [[wombat]] or irritated [[aardvark]], or cracking a skull during a training fall, is no way for a dwarf to end their story. And having a set of cheap "training armor" allows a new fort to field some metal-clad squads while others are safely sparring. However, against any larger [[creature]]s, and certainly against any sort of metal weaponry, these are completely insufficient for protection.

Metal armor must be made out of a [[weapons-grade]] material (i.e. copper, bronze/bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or something rarer). The only exception to this is when a dwarf is in a [[strange mood]], in which case a piece of armor might be created out of any metal lying around. The material used in armor is extremely important to combat; fully [[iron]]-armored dwarves with iron weapons stand far less chance against those using [[steel]].* In general, slashing weapons will have difficulty piercing armor made of the same weapons-grade material as the weapon and piercing weapons will be increasingly blunted, but blunt weapons will break bones through armor, almost regardless of its material. Rigid armor provides limited blunt protection, while chain mail shirts and leggings provide next to none. Even adamantine armor only prevents an estimated 13% of blows, demonstrating the utility of the slow-but-sure war hammer.

: ''(* see the [[Weapon#Superior_metal_rule|superior metal rule]])''

[[Shield]]s are a bit different than other pieces of armor - their material doesn't affect how well they deflect attacks, although that is not the only consideration. Wood and leather are both very light compared to their metal equivalents, tiring a low-skill dwarf less, and just as effective for blocking; however, they make for poor bludgeons if used to bash enemies (and they frequently are). When combined with changes made to how wear is applied to various materials, this means shields and bucklers of either will likely need to be replaced somewhat frequently if they are not artifact-quality. There can be no denying that the metal saved is significant, however, especially for new fortresses or in metal-poor embarks.

Certain weapons are surprisingly good at penetrating armor - copper whips will shatter skulls through steel helmets. [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.30 science!]

{| class="wikitable"
! colspan=5|Armor material comparison
|-
! Poor !! Acceptable !! Good !! Excellent !! Best
|-
| Leather/Bone/Wood || Copper || Iron/Bronze<nowiki>*</nowiki> || Steel || Adamantine
|}
:: (* Bronze here also includes [[bismuth bronze]], as both have identical combat stats and are armor-grade metals. [[Black_bronze|Black bronze]] '''cannot''' be used for armor.)

* [[Bone]] armor can be crafted very early in the game from the bones of livestock or other animals. Roughly equivalent to leather, bone armor provides practically no protection against "real" weapons or large animals, and little against the attacks of medium-sized animals, making it an inferior option even for [[hunter]]s, except as a fashion statement. Most types of [[Wood]] are not better than Bone, and are only used/crafted by [[Elves]], since they don't practice metalworking.
* [[Copper]] armor is the lowest-grade type of metal armor, but also (usually) the easiest to get, requiring one of [[native copper]], [[malachite]], or [[tetrahedrite]] (next to guaranteed on any embark containing more than one metal).
* [[Bronze]] is an [[alloy]] of copper and [[tin]], which requires [[cassiterite]]. It is much-improved over copper armor and is slightly stronger than iron, but it also weighs more and is more elastic.*
:* [[Bismuth bronze]] has identical properties to standard bronze, but has been alloyed with [[bismuth]], making it more valuable (and fancier-[[Color#Material_by_color|color]]ed). If you have access to bismuth and want to put it to use, and you have the time and [[fuel]] for the extra steps, you can save some tin and increase the [[value]] of the final objects this way.
* [[Iron]] can be smelted from [[hematite]], [[limonite]], or [[magnetite]] and is easiest to find in [[sedimentary layer]]s (though [[igneous extrusive]] layers may contain hematite). It is roughly comparable to bronze: it is slightly weaker but more rigid*, and has a less complicated smelting process.
:: ''(* What this means is that, unless you really want to both nerd-out on weapon/armor/damage mechanics and ''then'' micro-manage armor material vs. specific opponent weapon type and material during each different siege combat - and Respect if you can do that effectively - just consider them equal and you'll be close enough.)

* [[Steel]] is, by far, the best non-adamantine armor material, and is the "go to" for most fortresses. Creating steel is a 2-stage process that requires [[fuel]], [[flux]], [[iron]], and [[pig iron]] in its manufacturing. Note that steel in ''Dwarf Fortress'' is just as valuable as [[gold]]; making lots of armor is a sure way to attract [[siege|attention]], but at least it's going into shiny armor, right?
* [[Adamantine]] is only found beneath the third [[cavern]] layer, plumbing the depths of the [[magma sea]]; it can be used to create unparalleled armor, but is very time-consuming to produce, in addition to being hazardous to mine, and is immensely valuable to boot.

A detailed breakdown can be found [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=53571.0 here]. Note that a full suit of ''any'' non-adamantine metal armor will considerably slow down a raw recruit of average strength, as shown briefly [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111414.0 here].



=== Quality and strange moods ===
Quality is an important modifier on armor - it gets a deflection bonus based on quality level, but its effect is only known for regular (1×), masterwork (2×), and artifact (3×) armor; presumably, the quality ranks in-between are progressive.

{{:Item quality/Table}}

This means that effectively, masterworks produced by legendary [[armorsmith]]s cut damage done by as much as half. This, combined with the need to produce a lot of armor, makes armorers far and away the most-desired dwarves for [[strange mood]]s, and various schemes exist for influencing such an event. Graphically, the quality of upper body armor and clothes can be seen in portraits of some individuals, such as the created characters in [[Adventure mode]]. Before starting a game in said mode, the player can choose any type of wearable item for themselves, at the cost of points. In these character portraits, the quality of clothes can be easily seen, as the piece of clothing will appear to be more lavishly decorated the higher the quality is. This can be seen in the image below:

[[File:armor_quality_preview.png|thumb|708px|center|From left to right, the armor's level of quality are standard, -well-crafted-, +finely-crafted+, *superior quality*, =exceptional=, ☼masterful☼ and artifact.]]

In adventure mode, the player has the choice of choosing the quality of some clothing and weapons by clicking [[File:quality_increase_button.png|16px]] and [[File:quality_decrease_button.png|16px]], with higher qualities costing more points. Note that some articles of armor will not show a unique graphic for every level of quality, and the player can never choose the artifact quality from the start.

Dwarves in strange moods can produce legendary artifacts, which benefit from a 3× multiplier, or three times as good as a more mundane piece of armor. Artifact-quality weapons-grade armor items are very strong defensively. However, artifacts can also be made of totally inappropriate materials, and the spectacularly-low defensive values of [[giant hedgehog]] [[bone]] leggings vastly outweigh any bonuses it gets. Fortunately, soldiers will not by themselves claim artifact equipment; it can only be issued by the overseer assigning it as a specific item.

Strange moods are an exception to the number-of-bars rule; only one bar is required for the item itself, although additional materials may be gathered for decoration.

=== Attachment ===
Dwarves that have used a particular piece of armor for an extended period of time may grow [[Attachment|attached]] to it, becoming [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?msg=7312290 better] at withstanding blows with it and unhappy if it is taken away. This is fine if it is a pair of ☼Steel Greaves☼, but it is a major problem if they are using what is meant to be interim armor. This happens less often with armor than it does for weapons. These events generate announcements.

=== Mechanics ===
There is no fundamental difference in performance between clothing and armor, something accentuated by regular clothing's ability to block attacks. Armor can be thought of as metal clothing, thicker and made of materials that have a much better chance of blocking attacks. Armor is, however, different in that it is not subject to standard [[wear]], will not be automatically equipped by civilians, and only non-clothing garments increase the [[Combat_skill|armor user]] skill.

The availability of specific articles of clothing varies by [[civilization]], and each has its own set of clothing that it can produce. In Fortress mode, sandals and shoes are in the same clothing class, but only the latter can be produced by dwarves, whereas the former must be stripped off dead enemies. Dwarves are gender-insensitive; a male dwarf may well put on a dress.

Non-armor clothing can provide some defense, most importantly to areas that are not covered by regular armor. The ears, nose, lips, and teeth are always exposed, even in full armor. Robes and cloaks will provide a bulwark of low-level protection, making them useful for military dwarves, especially those you plan to send through the [[danger room]].

=== Encumbrance ===
Sometimes, it is better to wear less than more armor, because it slows you down. Non-armor users tend to get slowed down significantly if they are wearing more than 1 piece of armor with 15-25 units of weight. This includes items such as mail shirts, greaves, and breastplates. Gauntlets only weigh 1-2 units of weight depending on material, and high boots weigh 3 units. Most clothing weighs 1 unit or less, with the exception of plant cloth clothing, which weigh 4 times as much as their silk and yarn alternatives.

Since most dwarves are not [[danger room]]-trained right away into legendary armor users, it is highly recommended that you do not outfit them with the maximum amount of armor possible, as this will make them super slow and allow the enemy to get in many hits before they have a chance to fight back. Weight also hinders ranged units like marksdwarves, who more or less depend on their first strike and fast reload to cripple the enemy before they get into melee and who may also spend the majority of their time behind fortifications anyway.

Wearing a combination of 1 pair of metal gauntlets, 1 pair of metal high boots, 1 metal helmet, and 1 metal mail shirt gives an armor level 2 {{Verify|Are armor levels still relevant in the new material properties-based mechanics?}} metal armor layer that covers all areas without sacrificing speed due to encumbrance on non-armor users. This setup will prevent most cutting and stabbing attacks from weapons below the armor's metal grade, but it will still be vulnerable to crushing attacks since no metal greaves or breastplate is worn. Lighter and weaker types of armor, like leather armor and bone greaves, can also be worn in addition to the metal layer to provide additional protection without encumbrance, and they tend to be at least moderately effective if they are masterworks {{Verify}}. Shields should be made of wood when possible because a copper shield could weigh up to 13 units of weight, and material does not matter for blocking attacks. However, wooden and leather shields wear out and break rather quickly in the new version when used to hit armor in combat, so in the long run, a metal shield might be worth it.

=== Wear ===
Armor can suffer [[wear]] when it is struck in combat. Whether armor is damaged in a fight depends on the material differences (e.g. steel weapons can easily damage copper armor) and presumably also the power of the attacker. Armor is irreparable, so if it's destroyed in combat, new armor must be made or purchased to replace it.

=== Race ===
Armor is typically sized for the kind of creature that produced it. [[Goblin]]s, [[elves]] and your [[dwarves]] are all about the same size, and their equipment can be used interchangeably, but [[human]] armor is too big for other races. You can manually specify the target race when forging armor, which is useful if you have non-dwarf [[visitor|residents]]. Also, armor sized for [[hyena man|hyena men]] is big enough to be worn by humans, but still small enough to be worn by dwarves. Being bigger, it also [[material science#Contact Area|offers]] slightly better slashing [[weapon]] protection than dwarf-sized armor, but is also more [[weight|heavy]]. Conversely, [[wolf man]]-sized armor is the smallest you can produce for your dwarf military, and may reduce their encumbrance a bit (but it's worse against slashing attacks).

Shields do not have a target race, so anyone can use them.

== Layers ==
The layers are, in order from inner to outer:
*Under
*Over
*Armor
*Cover

==Types of protection==
===Availability===
None of the clothing/armor items are guaranteed in the [[raw]]s to be available for production, but each body part will have some item to cover it (for certain layers, most importantly the armor layer{{verify|which other layers, or is it by armor level, or some thing else}}).

Also, dwarven [[civilization]]s are not homogenous; there can be small variations between them. Occasionally, some items listed below may randomly be deemed "inappropriate" for your chosen dwarven culture, and so your fortress simply cannot manufacture them. Your dwarves might still choose to wear them, but they can only be obtained via [[trade]] or recovered off [[war|bodies]] (assuming those items are "dwarf-size"). This can include items ''not'' specifically marked below as "uncommon" (≈).

===Material requirements===
The number of regular metal bars needed to make a piece of metal armor is equal to the '''material size''' divided by 3, rounded down with a minimum of one.
The number of adamantine wafers or stacks of adamantine cloth required to create armor is equal to the material size.

===Headgear===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=3|Graphic (Preview/Portrait/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Layer Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Layer Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Face Veil{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:face_veil_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_face_veil.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:face_veil_icon.png]]

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mask{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mask_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_mask.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mask_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L,B,S,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Headscarf{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:headscarf_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_headscarf.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:headscarf_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Head Veil{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:head_veil_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_head_veil.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:head_veil_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Turban{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:turban_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_turban.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:turban_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cap{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cap_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cap_portrait_anim.gif|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cap_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|+{{verify|description for METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS token says it only works if ARMORLEVEL is explicitly declared, which is not for cap}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven

|-
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Helm{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:helm_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_helm.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:helm_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,B,S,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1+
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|-
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Hood
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:hood_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_hood.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:hood_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cover
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|}

===Upper body===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=3|Graphic (Preview/Portrait/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|UBSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|LBSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Tunic
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:tunic_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_tunic.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:tunic_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shirt_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_shirt.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Dress
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:dress_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_dress.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:dress_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Vest
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:vest_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_vest.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:vest_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Toga{{tooltip|≈|Uncommon}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:toga_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_toga.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:toga_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Coat
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:coat_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_coat.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:coat_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Robe
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:robe_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_robe.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:robe_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mail_shirt_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_mail_shirt.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mail_shirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Any chain
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Leather Armor{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:leather_armor_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_leather_armor.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:leather_armor_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Breastplate{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:breastplate_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_breastplate.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:breastplate_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|9
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cape_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_cape.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cape_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cover
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cloak_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:portrait_cloak.png|30px]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cloak_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cover
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Backpack
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:backpack_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|>300
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Quiver
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:quiver_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|>300
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Flask
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:flask_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Unique
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|}
[[Quiver]]s and [[backpack]]s are also worn on the upper body, counting towards layer permit size. [[Flask]]s are attached to the upper body armor or the garment worn over it (but not cover-layer items, such as cloaks).

===Hands===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=2|Graphic (Preview/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|UPSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Gloves
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:gloves_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:glove_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Gauntlets{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:gauntlets_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:gauntlet_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|B,S,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mittens
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mittens_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mitten_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cover
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|}

Each crafting job produces a pair of gloves, gauntlets, or mittens -- one right-handed, and one left-handed. The items from a single job may have different quality levels.

===Lower body===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=2|Graphic (Preview/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|LBSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Thong{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:thong_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:loincloth_thong_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|25%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Loincloth
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:loincloth_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:loincloth_thong_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Braies{{tooltip|≈|Uncommon}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:braies_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:braies_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Trousers
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:trousers_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:trousers_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|4
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Skirt (Short){{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:short_skirt_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:short_skirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Skirt{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:skirt_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:skirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Skirt (Long){{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:long_skirt_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:long_skirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Leggings{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:leggings_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:leggings_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,B,S,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1+
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Metal chain
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Greaves{{tooltip|§|Shaped}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:greaves_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:greaves_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|B,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Armor
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|}

===Footwear===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=2|Graphic (Preview/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|UPSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Socks
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:socks_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:socks_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Chausses{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:chausses_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:chausses_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Under
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|MAX
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Sandals{{tooltip|ƒ|Foreign}}
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:sandals_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:sandals_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|25
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Shoes
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shoes_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shoes_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|C,L
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Woven
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Low Boots
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:low_boots_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:low_boots_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|25
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1+
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|High Boots
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:high_boots_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:high_boots_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,M
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|25
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Over
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|100%
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1+
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|}

Each crafting job produces one pair of footwear. Unlike gloves, footwear items are interchangeable (they are not right- or left-footed). The two items from a single crafting job may have different quality levels.

===Shield===
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class="wikitable sortable"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Clothing Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;" colspan=2|Graphic (Preview/Icon)
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Blockchance
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Material Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Materials|Can be Cloth, Leather, Bone, Shell, Metal, or Wood.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Layer Size]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|Permit]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Layer
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Coverage %
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|[[Armor#Coverage|UPSTEP]]
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|{{tooltip|Armor Level|Items without an armor rating are considered clothing.}}
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Elasticity
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Buckler
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:buckler_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:buckler_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,M,W
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Shield
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shield_sprite.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shield_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|4
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|L,M,W
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|NA
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|N/A
|}
Note: Striking with a shield trains both misc object user and armor user skills. Additionally, shield material and quality only matter for bashing attacks and do not affect blocking. Skills rolls are 1d(blockchance) + 2d(skill*15), so skill matters more than blockchance even at novice skill. Also note that shields have increased mass when made for/by larger creatures.

Armor levels 1-3 were referred to as 'leather', 'chain', or 'plate' in earlier versions.
:+ The armor level is increased by one if made from metal.
:§ A shaped item, max one shaped item per body slot (e.g. a breastplate cannot be worn with leather armor, but it can be worn with a mail shirt, while greaves and leggings cannot be combined).
:ƒ This "foreign" article can never be crafted by dwarves (except for [[artifact]]s) but may be purchased in trade, although, not every article without this can always be crafted (see {{token|armor|e}}).
:≈ Uncommon for dwarven civilizations, thus not available more often.
* In theory, the only metal armor pieces which are not "shaped" are Mail Shirt, Flask, Low Boots and High Boots; in practice, the only ''true'' shapeless metal armor is Mail Shirt, because Flask can't deflect hits, while Low and High boots have such low permit that it's impossible anyway to put a second pair of boots on top of the first.
* '''Elasticity''': Woven items (with {{token|STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD|armor}} token) are flexible if they are made of any woven cloth (plant fiber, silk, or yarn), metal chains (with {{token|STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_CHAIN_METAL|armor}}) performs the same function for items made of metal, and any chains (with {{token|STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_CHAIN_ALL|armor}}) makes items flexible regardless of their material; flexible items provide little or no protection from blunt attacks, while all others are treated as rigid.
===Melting===
Armor pieces that are made of [[metal]]s can be "melted" to regain [[bar]]s of the original material. See the [[melt item]] article for full information.
{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class=wikitable class=sortable
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Armor Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Icon
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Bars to make
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Bars returned on melting
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1.2em;"|Melting efficiency %
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cap
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:cap_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0.3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Helm
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:helm_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0.6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|60%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:mail_shirt_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.8
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|90%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Breastplate
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:breastplate_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|3
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2.7
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|90%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Gauntlets (per pair)
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:gauntlet_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|120%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Leggings
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:leggings_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.5
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Greaves
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:greaves_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.8
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|90%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Low Boots (per pair)
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:low_boots_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0.6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|60%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|High Boots (per pair)
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:high_boots_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|120%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Buckler
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:buckler_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0.6
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|60%
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Shield
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em; text-align:center;"|[[File:shield_icon.png]]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|1.2
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|120%
|}

==Special procedurally-generated armors==
Some rare entities have their own procedurally-generated armors. Currently, these armors are produced by copying the default properties of the "base" armor and adding an adjective ("bulging", "segmented", "rounded", etc.). Dwarves in [[strange mood]]s that select from all armors with a certain tag may produce one of these procedurally-generated armors. Since they retain the properties of their base items, these armors should be as usable as standard armor of the base type.

==Equipping clothing==
Items in ''Dwarf Fortress'' must be equipped in a specific order, similarly to what happens in real life: for example, a dwarf cannot equip a layer type of Under when they are already equipping a layer type of Over. The complete order is (inner clothing to outer clothing): Under, Over, Armor, Cover. It is common among civilians to see a dwarf equip pants with no undergarments due to this restriction, even when an undergarment is available. This issue doesn't typically occur with soldiers, however.

There is no restriction on wearing multiple items of the same type ''(Unless the item is shaped [S])''. You can, for example, wear 3 cloaks without penalty.

===Process for equipping a new piece of clothing===
[[File:aardvark_armor_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|An aardvark wearing armor meant for a dwarf. Somehow. Also, average-quality breastplate is made from non-armor-grade metal. Somehow.]]The following variables will be used in the logic below:
:'''Current Item''' refers to the specific item being equipped.
:'''Total Size''' refers to the [[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|size]] of all items equipped on that body part, excluding the item to be equipped (while including those on a different [[Armor#Size, Permit, and layering armor|layer]]).
:'''Permit''' is a capacity value indicating the maximum allowable size of items equipped on the same layer and lower layers as the item being equipped.

In order to equip a new item, the dwarf (or other creature):
:*determines if they are eligible to wear the item in question (perhaps the body part is missing/severed);
:*must start with the lowest layer first, continuing to the next layer when no other items of that layer need to be equipped;
:*checks if the item is shaped [S] and will only equip the item if no other shaped items are equipped '''on that body part''';
:*considers the item with the lowest permit value first. If two items share the same permit value, the highest-size item would be equipped first{{verify}};
:*checks if the total size of items on each body part the current item would cover (excluding the current item's size) is less than or equal to the current item's permit level.
:*in case of an Armor layer item, also checks whether its own size + permit value is greater than the total size of items already on the body part.
:*in case of any non-Cover item, checks whether the total size of '''items in the same layer including the current item''' is less than the smallest permit value among these items.
:*if all above conditions are met, the dwarf/creature will equip the item.

===Equipment process example===
Each item is listed in order of being equipped. The primary focus of this example is that the total size must be equal to or less than the permit size of the item being equipped. Like above, the total size ''excludes the size of the item being equipped''.

{| style="margin:1em 1em 1em 0;background:#F9F9F9;border:1px #AAA solid;border-collapse:collapse;" class="wikitable sortable"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;text-align:center;"

!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Item Type
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1em;"|Layer Size
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1em;"|Total Size*
!style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:1em;"|Permit
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|0
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|30
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Breastplate [S]
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|20
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|45
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|50
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|Mail Shirt
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|65
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|50
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|65
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|80
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|95
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|110
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|125
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|140
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|Cloak
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|15
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|155
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|150
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|150
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|160
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|170
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|180
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|190
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|200
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|210
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|220
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|230
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|240
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|250
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|260
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|270
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|280
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|290
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;"|300
|-

|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|Cape
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|10
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|310
|style="border:1px #AAA solid;padding:0.2em;color:#F00;"|300
|-
|}

* * = Total Size includes the layer size of all equipped items but does not include the item being equipped
*Red Text = This item cannot be equipped because the total size is larger than the item's permitted size.

==Layer Size, Permit, and layering armor==

The '''Layer Size''' and '''Permit''' values govern how much clothing or armor can be worn.

Example: A helm (30 size, 20 permit) can be worn over two head veils (10, 100) and can fit 6 additional hoods if desired.

Example: Wearing a cap (10, 15) allows only one face veil (10, 100), but a combined total of up to 9 head veils and hoods can be added.

'''Adventurer mode''' follows the arena rules, so it is possible to have three mail shirts (15, 50), a breastplate (20, 50), and 25 capes (10, 300) on one's upper body plus a helm and six hoods on one's head. Confirmation is needed to see if [[fortress mode]] follows the old rules or the new arena rules. (Testing finds that Urist McNopants follows a totally different set of rules than either of these - their rules tell them to forget both caps, all of the hoods, both socks, and their trousers, and each successive time they get dressed ,they feel the need to do it differently.)

===Some more workarounds regarding Layer Size, Permit, and Layering===
Let's say you want to kit out your soldier's upper body. Try walking through this in arena mode to get a feel for it.

You start off with a [[steel]] breastplate. This has a layer size of '''20''' and a permit of '''50'''. It is also '''shaped''', so you can't add any other shaped items: no more breastplates and no [[leather]] armor.

Now, you want to add mail shirts. Each one has a permit of '''50''' and a layer size of '''15'''. You can add three of these if you want. It checks the layer size against each of the armor pieces' permit + layer size (or rather, the permit value ignoring that item's layer size in the calculation) like so:
* Against each of the mail shirts, you have '''2 × 15 = 30''' total size in mail shirts and '''+ 20''' from the breastplate, matching the '''50''' permit.
* Against the breastplate, you have '''3 × 15 = 45 < 50''', which is fine.
Now, if you add a fourth mail shirt, these tests will fail. However, because of the layering order (mail shirts being armor layer 2, the breastplate armor layer 3), the breastplate is added after the shirts. This results in the breastplate being dropped.

Because this reaches the '''50''' permit limit for the mail shirts, you can't add more non-cover items without substituting them for existing items. If you want a robe (size '''20'''), for example, you need to remove two of the mail shirts to clear a total size of '''30''', which then lets you add an extra size '''10''' shirt, vest, or whatever.

However, you can add cover layer items - in this case, cloaks. Each cloak has a layer size of '''15''' and a permit of '''150'''. Taking into account the '''50''' size already on the upper body, we can add '''100''' size worth of cloaks. This lets us add '''6''' ('''× 15 = 90''') cloaks over the existing armor.

Going through armor like this for the rest of the body (most of it is simpler) gives you a final setup of:

{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Layer !! With Foreign Items !! Without Foreign Items !! Cheap
|-
| Body/Armour || '''''3 × mail shirts''''' '''1 × breastplate''' 6 × cloaks 16 × capes || '''''3 × mail shirts''''' '''1 × breastplate''' 6 × cloaks || 6 × dress 3 × robe 3 × cloak 
|-
| Legs || 3 × long skirts '''1 × greaves'''|| 2 × trousers '''1 × greaves'''|| 2 × trousers 1 × leggings or 1 × greaves (bone)
|-
| Head || - || '''1 × helm''' 8 × hood|| 1 × helm (leather, bone, shell) 8 × hood (or 0 × helm and 11 × hood)
|-
| Hands || - || '''1 × pairs of gauntlets''' 1 × pairs of mittens || 2 × pairs of gloves (or 1 × gauntlets - bone/shell) 1 × pairs of mittens
|-
| Feet† || 1 × pairs of chausses '''1 × pairs of high boots'''|| 1 × pairs of socks '''1 × pairs of high boots'''|| 1 × pairs of socks 1 × pairs of high boots (leather)
|}

Protected zones with optimal setups:
* With Foreign Items specific:
** Upper Torso: '''1 × breastplate''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', 6 × cloaks, 16 × capes. ('''9 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 30 rags, 48 half-rags)
** Lower Torso: '''1 × breastplate''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', '''1 × greaves''', 6 × cloaks, 16 × capes, 3 × long skirts. ('''15 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 39 rags, 48 half-rags)
** Upper Leg: '''1 × greaves''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', 3 × long skirts, 6 × cloaks, 1 × pairs of chausses. ('''6 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 39 rags)
** Lower Leg: '''1 × greaves''', '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 3 × long skirts, 6 × cloaks, 1 × pairs of chausses. ('''8 plate metal''', 39 rags)
** Toes: '''1 × greaves''', '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 1 × pairs of chausses, 3 × long skirts, 6 × cloaks. ('''8 plate metal''', 39 rags)
** Feet: '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 1 × pairs of chausses. ('''2 plate metal''', 3 rags)
* Without Foreign Items specific:
** Upper Torso: '''1 × breastplate''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', 6 × cloaks. ('''9 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 30 rags)
** Lower Torso: '''1 × breastplate''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', '''1 × greaves''', 6 × cloaks, 2 × trousers. ('''15 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 38 rags)
** Upper Leg: '''1 × greaves''', '''''3 × mail shirts''''', 2 × trousers, 6 × cloaks. ('''6 plate metal''', '''''18 chain metal''''', 38 rags)
** Lower Leg: '''1 × greaves''', '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 2 × trousers, 6 × cloaks. ('''8 plate metal''', 38 rags)
** Toes: '''1 × greaves''', '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 1 × pairs of socks, 2 × trousers, 6 × cloaks. ('''8 plate metal''', 39 rags)
** Feet: '''1 × pairs of high boots''', 1 × pairs of socks. ('''2 plate metal''', 1 rag)
* Metal Armor Sets specific:
** Neck, Upper Arm: '''''3 × mail shirts''''', 6 × cloaks ('''''18 chain metal''''', 30 rags).
** Lower Arm: '''1 × pairs of gauntlets''', 6 × cloaks ('''2 plate metal''', 30 rags)
** Fingers: '''1 × pairs of gauntlets''', 6 × cloaks, 1 × pairs of mittens ('''2 plate metal''', 1 150% rag, 30 rags)
** Hands: '''1 × pairs of gauntlets''', 1 × pairs of mittens ('''2 plate metal''', 1 150% rag)
** Skull: '''1 × helm''', 8 × hood. ('''2 plate metal''', 16 rags)
** Face: 6 × cloaks (30 rags)
* Cheap sets:
** ''To be written''
* Many Facial Features: Nothing

Finally, armor with larger Surface Area is harder to chop through with slashing swings; surface area of armor is likely sum of Surface Areas of all body parts covered by it, multiplied by Coverage.

To produce a set of full armor for a single dwarf (assuming you use no foreign items), you would require 14 metal bars, 15 units of leather or cloth (or silk or yarn), and 1 unit of cloth.

Of course, so long as the bugs are still around, we are likely to see dwarves wearing more than this, or refusing to put parts on because they found their boots before their socks.

''Note: "Cheap" implies the sets can be made from secondary materials such as bone and cloth, with item types not overlapping with the other, more combat-oriented sets that use metal, leather, and cloth (for socks). As a rule of thumb, combat sets provide better protection, but cheap sets are lighter and easier to mass-produce.''

† It appears that equipping footwear on one foot can affect what can be equipped on the other. For example, if a uniform calls for socks and high boots, a dwarf will only equip 3 of those 4 items between both of their feet.

==Coverage==
The value of coverage of an armor piece is the percentage probability that an attack made against a body part covered by said armor piece actually hits the armor. Example: Helms and caps both cover only the head (facial features excluded). 100% of attacks against the head of a helm-wearing dwarf are affected by the helm's protective capabilities because helms have 100% coverage. In the case of a cap-wearing dwarf, only 50% of attacks made against the head are affected by the cap - the remaining 50% bypass it and land directly on the head because caps have only 50% coverage. The value of coverage has an additional role in determining how well the armor protects against contaminants and temperature effects.

By default, armor pieces cover only a single body part, at which they are 'anchored' (hands, feet, lower body, upper body, or head){{verify}}. Their coverage is extended to other body parts using the following three tags:

:'''[UBSTEP]'''
This token, when applied to torso armor, controls how far 'up' the body an item of armor reaches. Basically, you can think of it as going out in stages along the body. It doesn't cover legs. It doesn't cover body parts with certain tags (notably [HEAD], [GRASP] and [STANCE], or the head). It can cover the children of such body parts (such as parts of the face) if it extends beyond them. The upper body and lower body are counted as 0 steps away, so both are always covered.

Breastplates have a default of 0, meaning they only cover the torso. 
Mail shirts have [UBSTEP:1], so they cover the upper arms and neck.

A number of clothing items have [UBSTEP:MAX]. What exactly this covers depends on a certain bug, but unless you are making adamantine robes, you probably won't get that much extra protection this way anyway. This would mean, for example, they would cover the upper arm and then lower arm, skip the hand, and then cover the fingers. The same goes for facial features after skipping the head and the toes after skipping the entire legs and feet. 
The clothes with these properties seem to be robes, cloaks, coats, shirts, and dresses. However, of these, only robes and dresses also have [LBSTEP:MAX] (see below), so I'm not sure if anything else would actually cover toes or not. This needs additional testing.

Testing in arena: in three battles with 15x15 dwarves where both sides was equipped with iron battle axes and iron full armor and one of the teams was enforced with leather robes, the team with robes was victorious (2-3 survivors).

:'''[LBSTEP]'''
This token, when applied to torso armor or pants, controls how much of the legs an item covers. Legs in this case are defined as [LIMB] body parts that end in a [STANCE] body part (e.g. foot). Arms are [LIMB]s but end in a [GRASP] hand instead. Because the upper and lower body are effectively zero steps from each other, torso armor can extend this way easily.

Both greaves and leggings have [LBSTEP:MAX] and so cover the entire leg to the best of their ability. 
Mail shirts have [LBSTEP:1] and so can protect the upper legs. A range of other clothes (including cloaks) and leather armor also have this.
As mentioned above, robes and dresses have [LBSTEP:MAX] and so cover the entire legs. These also have [UBSTEP:MAX] and so cover the entire body. Although not the strongest armor, a leather (or maybe adamantine?) robe or dress gives you maximum coverage.

:'''[UPSTEP]'''
This token, when applied to gloves or shoes, determines how far up the limb the armor protects. As with [LBSTEP], this doesn't cover anything but the [LIMB] tag body parts, but it does cover arms as well as legs.

Low boots literally only cover the foot. 
High boots have [UPSTEP:1], so they cover the lower leg. If you consider that the upper legs can covered by [LBSTEP] from above, you can effectively have an entire layer of chain armor on the legs from high boots and a mail shirt even before adding leg armor. This is why I go with greaves for a plate layer.
Gauntlets have [UPSTEP:1], so they cover the lower arms. Because there is no other protection for arms like there is for legs, you need gauntlets and mail shirts to protect your arms fully.
Chausses are a very rare sock substitute, but they are the only items to have [UPSTEP:MAX] and so offer full leg coverage while being exactly the same size as regular socks. They are the perfect undergarment.

The whole method is pretty nifty, even though faces can't be covered by head armor. This means that mouths, noses, eyes, and cheeks are as vulnerable as if you were not wearing anything at all, even if the name of an article of clothing would normally imply that it protects them. This also applies to teeth, lips, and ears.

Toes and fingers are protected by the relevant armor type (e.g. gauntlets cover fingers, and boots cover toes).

Coverage also seems to affect surface area of armor, being derived from surface area of all body parts covered by armor piece and multiplied by coverage. In turn, larger surface area of armor makes it harder to chop through with large-contact-area weapons like axes and swords. Thickness (overall toughness) of armor is, seemingly, derived from Material Size and Coverage.

== Other restrictions ==
In fortress mode, "under" layers cannot be put on over "over" layers, so, for instance, a dwarf cannot put on socks unless it first removes its shoes. They can wear over layers without putting an under layer on first, which explains their fondness for "going commando" (trousers without loincloth). Dwarves will only put on the specific armor they are told to put on unless they are not told what to wear.

Also, if you do not tell dwarves to replace clothing with a uniform, they will wear it alongside the uniform and possibly come into conflict with layering and sizes/permits, making them unable to wear assigned items. In particular, caps conflict with helms (both are shaped items), and shoes are too large to fit inside boots.

Military dwarves have a "pecking order" for equipment. The captain of the first squad created has first dibs, followed by their underlings in order, followed by the second squad, etc...

In adventurer mode, you have direct control over what armor you put on, and they are only limited by permit and "one only" (shaped) restrictions. This means you can wear three suits of mail (total size 45) plus another suit of chain or plate on top of them. On top of this, you can add six cloaks.

== Armor level ==
Armor Level is used for categorizing armor for determining which pieces are appropriate for a person to wear.

* Armor Level 0 - Clothing
* Armor Level 1 - Leather Armor
* Armor Level 2 - Chain Mail
* Armor Level 3 - Plate Armor

Having an Armor Level of 0 also enables wear-and-tear on a piece of armor, so that it wears out over time.

== Bugs ==
{{Translation
| dwarven = tosid
| elvish = datome
| goblin = nuklat
| human = stalcon
}}
* Many players report ranged dwarves have particular trouble equipping and using ammunition, unless the squad is assigned a uniform that includes a ranged weapon ''when the squad is created.'' This can be the default archer uniform, or any other uniform that has a ranged weapon assigned. Adding a ranged weapon or ranged weapon equipped uniform to the squad after creation will result in the squad failing to ever pick up bolts or arrows and the ammunition icon will remain red.
* Getting military dwarves to put on all their assigned equipment can be iffy. {{bug|535}}
* In fortress mode, it is possible to have (at least) 3 shields equipped.*(left hand, right hand, back, (turtle mode))
* Soldiers do not replace tattered clothing that is part of a uniform.{{bug|6039}}

{{Industry}}

{{Category|Armor|0}}
[[ru:Armor]]

Wealth

2026-05-10T20:38:14Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
[[File:wealth_preview.png|right]]Your '''created wealth''' is the sum product of all the labors of your fortress. It is visible on the [[Status#Fortress name and status|wealth tooltip]]* once you have a [[broker]] with the [[appraisal]] [[skill]] and a [[bookkeeper]] maintaining your records, and will update with the continual maintenance of your [[stocks]] by the bookkeeper.

: ''(* On the left of the bar at the top of your screen is your basic fortress info, its name and size. Mouse-hovering over this area reveals the wealth tooltip, a basic breakdown of the fortress' [[wealth]].)

Wealth is the sum of all objects of [[item value|value]] in your fortress, including raw materials like [[stone]]s and [[metal bar]]s, [[building]]s, engravings, and every kind of created good, all of which contribute to your total wealth to various degrees. [[Corpse]]s (''other than certain [[bone]]s, as seen below'') and [[remains]] of creatures have no wealth value.

[[Artifact]] items are usually one of the largest influences on fortress wealth, especially artifacts made out of or [[decorate]]d using valuable materials.

The display of your wealth on the main status screen is broken up into several categories: [[weapon]]s, [[armor]] and [[Clothing|garb]], [[furniture]], other objects (like [[finished goods]]), architecture ([[building]]s, [[constructions]], [[engravings]] and such), [[Display furniture|displayed]], and held/worn (items created internally that have been claimed by dwarves, like clothing).

See [[account]]s for the more abstract wealth count, used in [[world generation]] to determine building ownership and help ground various acts of corruption and [[villain]]y.

== Imports and exports ==
[[File:Wealth-tooltip.png|thumb|right|327px|[[Status#Fortress name and status|Wealth tooltip]] in Premium. Accuracy is based on your current [[Bookkeeper|Bookkeeping]].]]
Items made off-site are not counted in your total fortress wealth, and are instead listed as imports. This only applies so long as the object is unchanged; a decorated imported object will be made your own, and its value will be moved from imports to wealth. This is important when trading with caravans, as they will not accept goods stolen or lost by a previous caravan of that civilization. It is listed under "Imported Wealth".

Similarly, items made in the fortress that leave the map after being traded to a [[caravan]] are counted as exports, listed under "Exported Wealth."

== Influences ==
Wealth influences various game features. Having more fortress wealth increases the amount of [[migrant]]s you get per wave. Assuming that you are equipped to handle the new dwarves, this is usually a good thing. However, having an ''extreme'' surplus of wealth can cause your fortress to grow so quickly that the migrant arrivals outpace your ability to house and feed them or give them useful things to do. Drowning in migrants is a very real danger; make sure you are always equipped with surplus food, drink, beds and work stations.

A certain level of exports and overall wealth is required to acquire economically-linked [[holding]]s. However, for smaller sites, fortress wealth is the more important factor in determining economic linkage. Also, having a certain amount of fortress wealth and exported wealth is required to ascend the [[noble]] ladder: a [[baron]] requires 100,000 units of wealth overall and 10,000 wealth worth of exports. These values increase to 200,000 in overall wealth and 20,000 in exports for a [[count]], and 300,000 units of wealth with 30,000 in exports for a [[duke]]. The [[monarch]] has some fairly complicated requirements based on a few different categories.

On the negative side, having more wealth attracts more frequent and larger attacks from enemies. At first, this will be an above-average amount of [[thief|thieves]], but as the game progresses and your wealth continues to grow, this will develop into [[ambush]]es or [[siege]]s from opposing factions and visits from [[megabeast]]s. This keeps the game from being boring, but too much [[fun]] is also a bad thing; if you have a hard time dealing with the numerous waves of immigrants, you're probably not equipped to deal with a full-on siege.

== Building and limiting wealth==
Building wealth is simple -- just commit more people to useful industries and continue growing. You will want to establish a major [[industry]] and commit a number of skilled dwarves to it, allowing you to spend grand sums on caravans and get everything you absolutely need quickly and painlessly. If you intend to go this route, be sure to create plenty of extra [[bin]]s to ease the transfer of items to the trade depot and prevent stockpiles from becoming too full.

When first starting out, it's typically best to not focus on building fortress wealth too much until you have an effective military that can deal with the [[Megabeast|fun]] [[Werebeasts|things]] that such wealth can cause. However, in your first year, you probably want to create goods to be able to [[trade]] with the autumn dwarven [[caravan]], in order to obtain goods that are not available at your location, or that your fortress cannot produce on its own yet. A simple way to create a decent amount of wealth without much effort is to [[cook]] a surplus of [[lavish meal]]s. Be cautious about selling prepared meals to the [[Elf|elves]] though, as food with meat-based ingredients, and the wooden barrels in which the meals are likely stored, are [[Trading#Unacceptable_items|unacceptable]] to them.

[[Metal]]s are great materials for creating wealth. In particular, many locations have an [[ore]] of [[iron]] or [[silver]] - both are of moderate value and can be made into [[weapon]]s, [[furniture]] or crafts, while [[statue]]s make for high-value furniture. Certain butchered [[animal]]s have high-value bones or skulls. [[Ceramic]]s, especially [[stoneware]] made from [[fire clay]] can provide a continuous source of decent valued goods. Rough [[gem]]s can be hard to find, but a highly skilled [[gem setter]] can decorate objects to add considerable value to furniture or crafts.

On the opposite side, there are the fortresses that would much rather establish a baseline of sorts before embarking on an expansionist binge - getting a full defensive militia or defensive structures up, for instance, or penetrating an [[aquifer]] without having to waste precious reserves on more dwarves and more enemies. These players concentrate on low-value activities like carpentry, masonry, and mining, and only produce enough trade goods to get what is necessary from the caravans. Although they are slower to grow, they also afford their players more time to plan and to lay the groundwork for the future of the fortress.

Note that, no matter what, you ''will'' have to deal with ''some'' growth -- besides the natural expansion of your fortress, there's also the issue of [[artifact]]s. Do what you will, but every once in a while a dwarf will [[Strange mood|claim a workshop]] and produce a valuable trinket, and all you can hope for is that it's not worth too much. It's worth noting that artifact furniture is counted three separate times toward created wealth: as furniture, as architecture, and as displayed. You may wish to hold off on installing that legendary [[coffer]] that's worth three times as much as your fortress when just sitting in a stockpile.

Most players choose to walk the middle line, getting together the necessary industries, but concentrating on the [[metal industry]] early on, to get together their arms and armor. Although [[steel]] is worth its weight in [[gold]], it is much more useful deflecting goblin arrows from your fortress defenders than as a [[statue]] decorating your [[Meeting area|lobby]].

==Bugs==

*Some buggy items can have a negative wealth. This can cause events that are tied to fortress wealth to not occur when they should. To troubleshoot this, you can create a copy of the saved game with the bug, move all your items to the trade depot, and look through the value of the items. Once you find the offending items, you can either [[Dwarven Atom Smasher|atom-smash]] them or use DFHack's "autodump destroy" command.

{{Translation
| dwarven = limâr
| elvish = rano
| goblin = sloron
| human = ostri
}}

{{Category|Economy}}
[[ru:Wealth]]
[[zh:Wealth]]

Wealth

2026-05-10T15:14:57Z

Silverwing235: more organisation

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
[[File:wealth_preview.png|right]]Your '''created wealth''' is the sum product of all the labors of your fortress. It is visible on the [[Status#Fortress name and status|wealth tooltip]]* once you have a [[broker]] with the [[appraisal]] [[skill]] and a [[bookkeeper]] maintaining your records, and will update with the continual maintenance of your [[stocks]] by the bookkeeper.

: ''(* On the left of the bar at the top of your screen is your basic fortress info, its name and size. Mouse-hovering over this area reveals the wealth tooltip, a basic breakdown of the fortress' [[wealth]].)

Wealth is the sum of all objects of [[item value|value]] in your fortress, including raw materials like [[stone]]s and [[metal bar]]s, [[building]]s, engravings, and every kind of created good, all of which contribute to your total wealth to various degrees. [[Corpse]]s and [[remains]] of creatures have no wealth value.

[[Artifact]] items are usually one of the largest influences on fortress wealth, especially artifacts made out of or [[decorate]]d using valuable materials.

The display of your wealth on the main status screen is broken up into several categories: [[weapon]]s, [[armor]] and [[Clothing|garb]], [[furniture]], other objects (like [[finished goods]]), architecture ([[building]]s, [[constructions]], [[engravings]] and such), [[Display furniture|displayed]], and held/worn (items created internally that have been claimed by dwarves, like clothing).

For the more abstract wealth count, used in [[world generation]] to determine building ownership and help ground various acts of corruption and [[villain]]y, see [[account]].

== Imports and exports ==
[[File:Wealth-tooltip.png|thumb|right|327px|[[Status#Fortress name and status|Wealth tooltip]] in Premium. Accuracy is based on your current [[Bookkeeper|Bookkeeping]].]]
Items made off-site are not counted in your total fortress wealth, and are instead listed as imports. This only applies so long as the object is unchanged; a decorated imported object will be made your own, and its value will be moved from imports to wealth. This is important when trading with caravans, as they will not accept goods stolen or lost by a previous caravan of that civilization. It is listed under "Imported Wealth".

Similarly, items made in the fortress that leave the map after being traded to a [[caravan]] are counted as exports, listed under "Exported Wealth."

== Influences ==
Wealth influences various game features. Having more fortress wealth increases the amount of [[migrant]]s you get per wave. Assuming that you are equipped to handle the new dwarves, this is usually a good thing. However, having an ''extreme'' surplus of wealth can cause your fortress to grow so quickly that the migrant arrivals outpace your ability to house and feed them or give them useful things to do. Drowning in migrants is a very real danger; make sure you are always equipped with surplus food, drink, beds and work stations.

A certain level of exports and overall wealth is required to acquire economically-linked [[holding]]s. However, for smaller sites, fortress wealth is the more important factor in determining economic linkage. Also, having a certain amount of fortress wealth and exported wealth is required to ascend the [[noble]] ladder: a [[baron]] requires 100,000 units of wealth overall and 10,000 wealth worth of exports. These values increase to 200,000 in overall wealth and 20,000 in exports for a [[count]], and 300,000 units of wealth with 30,000 in exports for a [[duke]]. The [[monarch]] has some fairly complicated requirements based on a few different categories.

On the negative side, having more wealth attracts more frequent and larger attacks from enemies. At first, this will be an above-average amount of [[thief|thieves]], but as the game progresses and your wealth continues to grow, this will develop into [[ambush]]es or [[siege]]s from opposing factions and visits from [[megabeast]]s. This keeps the game from being boring, but too much [[fun]] is also a bad thing; if you have a hard time dealing with the numerous waves of immigrants, you're probably not equipped to deal with a full-on siege.

== Building and limiting wealth==
Building wealth is simple -- just commit more people to useful industries and continue growing. You will want to establish a major [[industry]] and commit a number of skilled dwarves to it, allowing you to spend grand sums on caravans and get everything you absolutely need quickly and painlessly. If you intend to go this route, be sure to create plenty of extra [[bin]]s to ease the transfer of items to the trade depot and prevent stockpiles from becoming too full.

When first starting out, it's typically best to not focus on building fortress wealth too much until you have an effective military that can deal with the [[Megabeast|fun]] [[Werebeasts|things]] that such wealth can cause. However, in your first year, you probably want to create goods to be able to [[trade]] with the autumn dwarven [[caravan]], in order to obtain goods that are not available at your location, or that your fortress cannot produce on its own yet. A simple way to create a decent amount of wealth without much effort is to [[cook]] a surplus of [[lavish meal]]s. Be cautious about selling prepared meals to the [[Elf|elves]] though, as food with meat-based ingredients, and the wooden barrels in which the meals are likely stored, are [[Trading#Unacceptable_items|unacceptable]] to them.

[[Metal]]s are great materials for creating wealth. In particular, many locations have an [[ore]] of [[iron]] or [[silver]] - both are of moderate value and can be made into [[weapon]]s, [[furniture]] or crafts, while [[statue]]s make for high-value furniture. Certain butchered [[animal]]s have high-value bones or skulls. [[Ceramic]]s, especially [[stoneware]] made from [[fire clay]] can provide a continuous source of decent valued goods. Rough [[gem]]s can be hard to find, but a highly skilled [[gem setter]] can decorate objects to add considerable value to furniture or crafts.

On the opposite side, there are the fortresses that would much rather establish a baseline of sorts before embarking on an expansionist binge - getting a full defensive militia or defensive structures up, for instance, or penetrating an [[aquifer]] without having to waste precious reserves on more dwarves and more enemies. These players concentrate on low-value activities like carpentry, masonry, and mining, and only produce enough trade goods to get what is necessary from the caravans. Although they are slower to grow, they also afford their players more time to plan and to lay the groundwork for the future of the fortress.

Note that, no matter what, you ''will'' have to deal with ''some'' growth -- besides the natural expansion of your fortress, there's also the issue of [[artifact]]s. Do what you will, but every once in a while a dwarf will [[Strange mood|claim a workshop]] and produce a valuable trinket, and all you can hope for is that it's not worth too much. It's worth noting that artifact furniture is counted three separate times toward created wealth: as furniture, as architecture, and as displayed. You may wish to hold off on installing that legendary [[coffer]] that's worth three times as much as your fortress when just sitting in a stockpile.

Most players choose to walk the middle line, getting together the necessary industries, but concentrating on the [[metal industry]] early on, to get together their arms and armor. Although [[steel]] is worth its weight in [[gold]], it is much more useful deflecting goblin arrows from your fortress defenders than as a [[statue]] decorating your [[Meeting area|lobby]].

==Bugs==

*Some buggy items can have a negative wealth. This can cause events that are tied to fortress wealth to not occur when they should. To troubleshoot this, you can create a copy of the saved game with the bug, move all your items to the trade depot, and look through the value of the items. Once you find the offending items, you can either [[Dwarven Atom Smasher|atom-smash]] them or use DFHack's "autodump destroy" command.

{{Translation
| dwarven = limâr
| elvish = rano
| goblin = sloron
| human = ostri
}}

{{Category|Economy}}
[[ru:Wealth]]
[[zh:Wealth]]

Mink man

2026-05-10T09:49:59Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|image=mink_man_sprite.png
|portrait=mink_man_portrait.png}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Mink men''' are [[animal people]] variants of the common [[mink]], who can be found in [[savage]] [[temperate]] [[lake]]s and [[river]]s. They spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals and are generally content to keep to themselves. In terms of size, they are a little over half the weight of the average [[dwarf]].

Like other savage animal people, mink men can join [[civilization]]s, become [[historical figure]]s, appear as [[visitor]]s, and be playable in [[adventurer mode]].

Some dwarves [[Preferences|like]] mink men for their ''long bodies''.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}

Mink

2026-05-10T09:48:22Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{creaturelookup/0
|image=mink_sprites.png
|portrait=mink_portrait_anim.gif
|skull=1
|contrib=no
|wiki=yes}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Minks''' are tiny [[creature]]s who can be found in [[temperate]] [[lake]]s and [[river]]s. They are solitary (appearing only one at a time) benign, and only marginally larger than the average [[Cat|kitten]], making them entirely harmless. A newborn mink is called a ''mink kit''.

Minks can be captured in [[cage]] [[trap]]s and [[Animal trainer|trained]] into exotic [[pet]]s. Their tiny size means they can't be [[butcher]]ed if hunted, and slaughtered tame ones will only give a [[skull]] in return.

Some [[Dwarf|dwarves]] [[Preferences|like]] minks for their ''long bodies''.

[[File:MinkforWiki.jpg|thumb|center|400px|Admired for their ''long bodies''.]]

{{gamedata}}
{{creatures}}

RPPR Transcript

2026-05-08T09:35:30Z

Silverwing235: build on Anon's spelling work from earlier - run-ons, etc

== Top ==

=== 0:00:00 - 0:30:00 ===
[http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2008/05/interview/rppr-interview-with-tarn-adams-creator-of-dwarf-fortress/ Role Playing Public Radio]: This is Ross Payton for RPPR, and here with me is Tarn Adams the developer and programmer for Dwarf Fortress the Indie cult hit computer game.

0:00:12
RPPR: So Tarn, why don't we start off with your elevator pitch of Dwarf Fortress, introduce it to those who aren't familiar with it.

0:00:21
Tarn Adams: Ideally I'd like to say Dwarf Fortress is a fantasy world simulator, you know, kind of along the lines of other sim games you might be familiar with. But right now it's more of a Dwarf Fortress simulator, which is why it's got that native.

So basically you start a colony of dwarves, you start out with just seven of them, and you dig out a fortress in the ground, and I mean you kind of place workshops and so on. You might be reminded of a real time strategy game. But it's a bit different from that, they have jobs and overcome various standard fantasy adversity situations, and you're always destined to lose the game.

But the thing about this that makes is nice is that the whole entire world is saved. I mean I do have my eyes on this being a larger project with the entire world always being active. So your fortress will be saved in the world wherever you chose to place it. And you can come back with more dwarves later to try and revitalize it, or bring it back from nothing. Or you can come in with a more standard kind of RPG adventure, and see what's going on there, read old engravings that your dwarves made a hundred years ago, see if the Dragon is still living there, that kind of thing.

And I'm just focusing now on the actual world generation 'cus right when you start the game you go through this sort of world generation process where it starts from scratch, places some landscapes, and continents and so on and the seeds of a few civilizations here and there and some large standard fantasy monsters and so on and lets them do their thing for a thousand or so years. Then your involvement in the game begins with either your dwarf fortresses or your adventurers and we'd like to get you involved with more and more things as it goes, but as it stands the dwarf fortress component is the main part of the game.

0:03:01
RPPR: Right and even with just that component it's developed quite a following. I don't think I've seen any game with such a following over people who aren't even necessarily playing it but following other people playing it. For example the Saga of the fortress [[Boatmurdered]] which has become sort of a cult hit in of itself on the Internet. I've read people describing that they don't want to play the game so much as to run it and have them tell stories.

And yet at the same time you've also been very critical of narratives in video games today. What is the role of narrative in Dwarf Fortress and what's your critique of video game narratives?

0:03:53
TA: I'm certainly approaching it a little different than you'd often see in fantasy. To start with video games in general I haven't played a lot of games recently but, narrative wasn't sort of a fixed was always a down side mainly because your sort of investing your time the narrative is never quite like reading a book because you have to do parts over and over again, go back to old save points, see the same thing happen 20 times, and maybe not even have the ability to skip seeing it nineteen of those times, and it was just sort of a frustrating thing. But the main thing for us was we always wanted to write, and when I say we (I'll do that a lot) my brother's the other person working on this project. And when we started writing games, our main thing was just to write games we could play and if you're doing a game with a fixed plot it's just not that interesting to play as the designer because you know everything that's going to happen. You can't really surprise yourself that way. So we always kind of moved away from those things, but then again you've got things like strategy games out there and so on that don't really have necessarily any plot at all aside from maybe this is taking place in North Africa in World War 2 or something, and you have the entire narrative surrounding that to the extent that you know the history of the situation. But the types of stories that arise out of that would be these alternative history situations, who won this fight, what happened, what went wrong, that kind of thing.

Dwarf Fortress sort of thrives partially on the same thing, except you don't have the same kind of background. But, the idea was to kind of create that background randomly so that it's not something that would be easy to get burned out on at least when the project gets far enough along and right now we've just got this Human Dwarf Goblin Elf Kobold type thing that's been done a million times. But the fact that the back story is different every time, and with the next release there's going to be a lot of additions to that, to the history of the world, because I'm putting the world generation wars in. It gives you an interesting starting point and the main thing though now that doesn't matter so much right now the main thing is just that there's lots of little moving parts and one of the difference between computer games and other types of games is that you can track an awful lot of stuff and provided you don't have a lot of bugs it's all going to be internally consistent so you don't have to worry about forgetting something or having to cover for yourself later on when you're telling the story because it will just keep track of it for you.

So when you've got all of these things going on, when you're a player playing the game, you kind of focus on the things that you're interested, and there's an awful lot to do. You can see one of the favorite little dwarves that you've been working with, something will go terribly wrong, his cat will die or something, and he'll start going crazy and pick someone to beat up and that guy will go nuts and go pull a level or something he probably shouldn't have pulled, and bathe the entire lower level of the fortress and flood it from something you have for your sewer system or something like that. And those kind of things assuming that you're really invested in that then you'd have a story to tell and the things that you'd be watching about it are the things that you're interested in. As long as there's enough floating around for you to look at then it's a different kind of way of getting a narrative out of the game and then when you start again, assuming you aren't jaded on the whole process, then you can do it again, share what happens with your friends and so on, where as the whole thing of having a plot or a track that you need to walk down or a whole branching path that you need to explore that's really common in computer games, doesn't really come up. I mean there are a lot of people that like that kind of thing.

0:08:20
RPPR: Right, the sort of choose your own adventure method.

0:08:24
TA: Yeah, yeah, I mean it will have more/less branches and people will try and say it has more branches than it actually does sometimes. In the end, as the designer/developer here, it's really hard to write that sort of game then stick with it for a while. I mean you can kind of become invested in your world or whatever; a lot of people sort of like to build up a fixed world and add all kinds of interesting details. But, like I said we kind of wanted to play the game too. And so, I mean do get to mess around with that a little bit when I change the properties of the stock creatures that come with the game. You can modify anything almost, as to do with the creatures anyway. But I still have to ship some out, when I say ship I mean include in the little zip file that you can download from the website. But the Dwarves are a certain way, and Elves are a certain way, and Goblins are a certain way. And although the reasons that I make them different is not so much to liven up the universe as it is to introduce new mechanics to fiddle with, that can be used by other people, mixed and matched, that sort of thing. It's still fun to work with that; I've got my Goblins right now, for example, sort of have this Labyrinth the movie type of pathology, where they kidnap babies from other races then raise them. And it's led now in the world generation to some very strange scenarios where a Goblin would kidnap an Elf and then raise the Elf. But then the Elf would decide to become a Kidnapper themselves and kidnap another Elf or kidnap some Dwarves and then that Dwarf would lead an army and so on for the Goblins and all that kind of thing. And all that just came up; I didn't have to do anything once I got them doing the kidnapping everything else just happened automatically.

0:10:30
RPPR: Is that something you anticipated?

0:10:33
TA: Yeah, that was the reason I did it, I want some cool stuff to happen! No no, I don't anticipate everything certainly. But you can kind of tell what's going to happen, right? I mean the second you put in Goblins are going to kidnap and raise these babies, you know what's going to happen, you can tell they're going to be leading armies and being kidnappers and so on, but it's so funny to see it. And it's not something where I feel like you know, well I'm heading, when I fire up the game myself and look at the world generation, I don't feel like I'm heading to the kingdom of Agrotha for the thirty-seventh time to rescue the kidnapped prince or whatever I mean I'm seeing something interesting each time that's different. And the way that the pieces fit together you really start to kind of lose track and it gets really interesting to look at the files. It records almost everything that happens, certainly anything important, but even things like someone moving to a different house or something. So you can pick a character when you're looking at the legends and look at all the things that happened in their life, and go look at another one and kind of build up this narrative yourself. It's difficult as a computer game project to get the narrative produced by the game so you can just read it like a book. We're hoping to do more and more with that but it is a difficult process to have it pick out what's important and to focus on those characters and so on. And string on all the events together and then do all that in standard English without being repetitive.

It's a very difficult project but even having the players just able to see the information and reconstruct the narrative themselves it's sort of a tool for them to tell those stories. And everything you do in the game, at least our goal is, it does this to a good extent now but we'd like to do more so, get the events while you play recorded right along with the histories. That's already happening in a sort of half assed way right now. Then you can kind of weave your fortress, look at the history back before you were allowed to start playing, and just see this picture come into being.

0:13:05
RPPR: You mentioned several times that you developed this game to make it so you could play it yourself, and you mentioned you know make sure the character; as long as the player isn't jaded with it, as long as their still involved with the characters.
What do you do in Dwarf Fortress to try and keep players interested in the game or involved with it? Are there any techniques or anything that you use to keep them involved with the game or the narrative?

0:13:34
TA: Well, so a new player coming in, if they download Dwarf Fortress for the first time, they've got a lot to look at. Now if they don't like the interface, 'cause right now, I mean, we should say pretty early off this is essentially a text game. I mean if you've played a Rogue Like game, it's like that. It's got these ASCII text based graphics and although it's got some support for 2D tiles and so on. But it's not like it's going to get an overhaul and change into 3D or anything like that. So that's what you've got and that cuts off a lot of players there. And also the fact that it's documented poorly and the interface is still a very slow work in progress, because I'm still working on the game itself it's hard to focus on everything.

Once a player gets through all that, then they've got a lot to look at and I'm not really worried about them burning out on it, at least no more than on any other game. I mean when I was younger, playing a lot of games, I'd burn out on them, I never lasted more than a few days on any game. You know, you just get tired of them. But, what I'm doing for people playing the game now is I'm just putting out new versions all the time. Uhm, not ALL the time, I mean it's been a couple, two or three, months since I've put one out because I'm working on a pretty large project right now. But in general, I'll always be putting out these new versions and that gives people more things to play with, even in their existing fortresses, I've been pretty good about save game compatibility.

And you just need to put in more stuff, more stuff, more stuff and that's more elements for people to see in their stories. And it's all really generic, so I none of the worlds that it randomly generates are going to be a masterpiece of fantasy, with all this really subtle symbolisms and stuff going on they're always going to be kind of this cheap Beastmaster kind of knock off Tolkien crap, right? But it's fine, because if you're into that kind of thing, you're not going to get jaded on the game for that reason, right? It's not like “Oh I'm just sick and tired of dwarves” or whatever. It's not something that happens very often. I mean people do get tired of that crap, but they'll come back or they'll go on and find something else to do.

In general you just need to put in a lot of effort in putting in details into the game and so on. And people get tired of games, I'm surprised some people have been with the game since I've put it out on August 8th, and they're still there, August 8th 2006, and they're still there. I've never stuck with a game like that, so I'm not the first person you'd want to ask about how to stop people from getting jaded or whatever, because it's certainly beyond me to stay interested in anything that long. So it's cool for those people in that kind of limited group that can actually get into the game, something's going right. So I'll just keep doing things the way I'm doing it I guess.

0:16:47
RPPR: Well again, if you look at Boatmurdered, you can see how each player decided to take on their own projects, and they sort of interpreted like, I mean you call it a very generic sort of reporting of events in the game, but people interpreted them to turn this Saga of these sociopathic Dwarves setting the countryside on fire with lava channels and things like that. And I think there's a lot of interest in, you know, reinterpreting the works for your own amusement. But, one thing that always struck me that was real interesting was the emotional state of each character.

How do you model the dwarves? Did you just sort of make a sort of basic algorithm or A.I. for it? Or did you look at specific psychological personality profiling or anything like that?

0:17:28
TA: More, and more. As it started it was just really basic. You've got a Dwarf and you can set their jobs, what they do, and they'll go off and try and do those things. That's the very beginning before I released it, and I'm like “OK, I'm happy if they're actually working and not walking around in circles or jumping off cliffs or anything” right? So, if you want to create a character you don't just want them to be another unit in a war game or whatever you want to give them some more information. And so we gave them names, and it recorded their thoughts. Now the thoughts are when they see things they like, so we needed to give them likes and dislikes, have relationships with other characters and so on. It records all these things, their pets, and the types of animals they would keep as a pet, or at least the one they like the most. And, once you've got all that information, whether or not the dwarf is happy or sad, or that kind of thing, we don't really have a lot of emotional states right now, just sort of a linear spectrum from 0 to a very high number if they're really ecstatic. We'd like to do more with that basically because you have them in their thoughts they can see another dwarf with more stuff than they have and they can become jealous especially if that dwarf is in a sort of lower social station, meaning that the players kind of allowed them to have more things or given them a bigger room when the other dwarf things they shouldn't have it or so on. And you could say you're modeling jealousy at that point, but it's kind of weak, I mean it's certainly more than you see in a lot of other places, but it's still if that just makes their happiness number go down by 20 or something and they start pitching a fit or whatever. It's not a specific fit though, they aren't going after that particular dwarf and doing spiteful things to them or something, which is where we'd like to start pointing that stuff to get the specific emotions and having short term and long term relationships with people, emotional state that can flare up but still be different in the long term. There's lots of things that could be done, but it's a start. It's like every other system in the game you kind of work on it in stages and add things to it. But recently I've started looking at more things for instance for their personalities. Before a Dwarf meets other dwarves or things happen, now they've got a personality which is one of these partially implemented things I went with a, I don't remember the names of these things really well because I just find them on Wikipedia then look up supporting articles basically. So I think it's the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory Neo Pi-R]. It's a 30 facet personality model, they're grouped into five, five.. I guess the Big Five or something, things your sort of neurotic traits, like how paranoid you are or how angry you get or how much you can't control yourself, that kind of thing. And how open you are to new experiences, and how empathetic you are. And there's five categories there and each one has say six, I don't remember the exact set up, I know there are thirty total. But six different little traits like how cheerful you are or how artistic, that kind of thing. And those are the ones I'm using for now. There's some weaknesses, you kind of run into the weaknesses of the system pretty quickly when you already have the world in place. Certain things, certain facets don't exist that you'd like to have and so on. But I've got those and I've just been going back through the game and making dwarves start to change their decisions based on their personalities, so now they won't throw tantrums so much if they're supposed to be a calm Dwarf they'll handle the situation; they'll be able to more grief in their life anyway. But if they're really susceptible to it then they can become depressed, rather than throwing tantrums, and eventually just stop or whatever and jump into a chasm or something. Or, if they're really unable to control their anger then as their happiness goes down they'll start wrecking buildings and starting fist fights and throwing items and so on. And a dwarf that doesn't like to keep their situation organized wont clean up their room as often and so on. There's just little things put in like that. And as long as you don't start trying to hammer things into, you know like making all the dwarves suddenly, I don't know what a good example is. I mean something totally extreme would be like getting rid of pregnancy in female dwarves or something and have them jump out of the rock walls or something. I mean people would be unhappy with that. And if you made all the dwarves devoutly religious, and you had to build alters, or something; The dwarves have beliefs now, I recently added, but they're not strident about them, they don't do anything with them. If it were only the more feverishly devout dwarves doing those kind of things, so then that's good, but just having alters for everybody would be kind of bad. As long as you keep kind of everything open, and just add more details, but not sort of pigeon hole the experience for anybody, then people can continue building their stories. Continue to imagine the mechanics that don't exist, while making use of the mechanics that do exist. This is sort of how things like Boatmurdered and so on work, I mean a lot of the things that were described in that story Boatmurdered were game mechanics and did do exactly what they say. But there are other things in the story where they kind of ... about Boatmurdered was that the story, I mean there were a lot of things that came from the game itself, a lot of the mechanics and so on. But then there a lot of things where they embellished themselves, right? If they get into a dwarf's head and start doing dialog and all that kind of stuff they were doing, that's all made up, right? But as long as it isn't at odds with what I've set up for them then I think it works out better. But if I made all of the dwarves a certain way, or did something like that to them where they wouldn't have that freedom of narrative. And I mean it's already true to some extent, right? Because the dwarves all live in mountains, if they want to write a story that isn't about that, then they'd have to have their dwarves live outside, which kind of changes the game a little bit. But you just kind of go with people, so I don't anticipate ever hamstringing anyone like that. But it's just something to be careful of. Because sometimes when you get into your sort of stock universe ideas, you're set properties of the creatures and so on. Like I've been doing a bit, for instance with the goblins when I was talking about that kidnapping thing, they've always been doing that, but now it's really a more ingrained part of world generation. If that wasn't someones notion of a goblin, that's going to affect their ability not just to get into the game but to tell stories, and so on. And fortunately they can just go in and mod that out, there's just a thing in the goblin definition that says they do that kind of stuff and you can delete that line. But you don't want to force people to mod the game to get into it or whatever. In the end I'd like to move away from the stock universes more and have randomly generated creatures and more randomly generated items and situations and so on. You can go so far with that before it starts to look like gray goop or whatever, but I'd like to start moving in that direction, it's something I've always been saying. But anyway I'm rambling at this point so.

0:25:33
RPPR: That's fine, you're bringing up these randomly generated creatures in games. You've said recently that the people making Spore, the video game, have been playing Dwarf Fortress. and it's sort of an interesting thing.

0:25:45
TA: Who said that? That was Sims 3, those guys are playing it.

0:25:50
RPPR: Yeah, okay it was the Sims 3. But still it wouldn't surprise me if the Spore people were not at least aware of Dwarf Fortress. Certainly these game designers are keeping up with your game, it seems like. So what do you think the future of narrative or the future of storytelling in games is going to be like? Is it going to be more... Do you think it's leaning towards this direction of randomly or procedurally generated worlds or storytelling, like the Sims, like your game, and Spore?

0:26:38
TA: There's always going to be a place for these RPGs, right? A big place for them, any kind of role playing game with a story, you know Bioshock, that kind of thing. People play those games and I think random content, because.. I mean there's a lot of reasons why this sort of procedurally generated stuff is springing up, a lot of them are just financial. And if in Spore you can get people to pay to create your content for you, I mean I guess that's not a bad situation right? (Laughing) I can't say I'm totally for that but if people want to pay to do it that's cool. And it's not like I'm not benefiting myself from modders and so on so it's the same kind of thing I guess.

But there's just more room for it, I guess, is the thing, and if people who were getting kind of jaded, like myself I don't play games anymore really I mean there's just not a lot that I like, if there's more of a place for that kind of thing, rather there's more of an opportunity for that kind of thing just be processors have gotten better and so on. And people who need their graphics fix at the same time can still get procedurally generated content now, at least that's what we're going to see with Spore I imagine. It's not so much I think that fixed plot narratives and so on are dying in games or something like that, that's just not the case. But there's going to be more and more interesting things coming out, I think. And I'm just glad to be a small part of that.

0:28:12
RPPR: Any predictions of particular types of procedurally generated content that, we haven't seen yet, that you think is going to happen in the next few years.

0:28:24
TA: A few years, maybe not, it seems like it's going to be dry. It's been dry, this year. Short term you always get into that thing where we're going to be having flying cars in five years, or whatever it is, 's silly. In the future it seems there's a lot of people working on procedurally generated storylines and characters, because it would be nice, right? Because it does increase the replay value and it decreases your need to hire certain, you know, (chuckling) writers and so on, I guess. Although they'd still have a lot of work just to get those characters to say things reasonably, and so on. But people have been working on that, there are a lot of projects that I've heard about that are making quite a bit of progress with creating actors, characters, non-player characters, in the world. Giving them their motivations and their personalities, and so on. Setting the stage for them, but then the story after that kind of writes itself.

0:29:20
RPPR: Sounds like a table top RPG, almost.

0:29:25
TA: Yeah, it's like that. A lot of people don't get into table top RPGs or can't play them anymore, and so on. There are ways to handle that, or whatever, and one of them is just (chuckle) to remove the other humans from the equation, and try to turn them into little computer people, that's more or less how I operate. I'm making a single player game, but there are a lot of multiplayer aspects to how people play Dwarf Fortress, such as continuing each others fortresses, and so on.

But in the end it's a single player game, and so you're confronted then, when you're writing a single player game, with making a character that you'd like it to be something that can kind of live on it's own, if you don't want to go have a fixed narrative. But even with something like an MMO or something, one of those Massive Multiplayer Online games, if the Non-Player Characters there could react a little bit better, and some times you need them if you don't have a high enough player population for example, right? Then having those characters react to whats going on around them, rather than following a script, you know, would be beneficial. And it's also one those things that's just fun to work on as a project, trying to overcome those kinds of obstacles and I know there's quite a few people working on that sort of thing.

And seeing something, I don't know, like The Sims, or something, getting merged with a Fantasy universe, or a Sci-Fi universe, or something, with more of a directed plot, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Having the kind of autonomous characters thrust into a situation where there's sort of more than a peaceful town going on around them, I mean, you can expect to see that right? (chuckling) Well you're going to see it with the stuff that I'm doing. But I expect that other places as well.

=== 0:30:00 - 1:00:00 ===
0:31:50
RPPR: Right, is this something in the future for Dwarf Fortress? Do you think that you're, at some point in the future, going to add this sort of 'randomly generated narratives' or quests or something like that?

0:32:00
TA: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean if you have a really low bar, that you could trip over, you know, hurt your ankle, I'm there already. (laugh) But, uh, if you want to do things that are more interesting, I'm heading there, it's just going to take a while. For instance, you have right now the randomly placed human towns everywhere, and if you're an adventurer and you go there, they'll ask you to deal with local situations. And these are all... local situations, things that they're threatened by, local minotaur, or something, is causing trouble. They're not actually causing trouble now, they're just there. But you know, you've got to expect that kind of penchant to kill monsters that haven't done anything, to you at all, from a human, right? But that sort of thing can be expanded upon. Now with the historical stuff that I've got, they can look back; do they have any history with these things? Are they currently fighting a group next to them? They might ask you to go raid an nearby town, that's coming up in the release after this one. And as they develop more of this personal history, and so on, they'll have more interesting things for you to do.

At some point you now are at “Now is this the same as 'which-way' games, where they've got four different ways to go, and you're just kind of throwing a little bit of randomness into the mix, which kind of decreases the value, in a sense, because you're doing the same things but it's not with a character that's been built over time, that you're interested in.” It's kind of how it feels now, but it's getting better. And at some point what I'm hoping for is that slowly one by one, Dwarf Fortress is able to subsume the worst plots you've seen in the Fantasy games. There's just a horrible “go kill the big monster” quest, or “go fetch this item” and stuff. That kind of stuff just, without a lot of backstory. Those things are already being gobbled up. And then, as you have more and more backstory we'll be able to match that as well. And hopefully for the people that play the game, it's hard to go back sometimes to the really horrible stuff. Same kind of thing happened with the combat system. It's hard for some people to go back to hit points now, because we've done away with that entirely. Added all kinds of stuff with wounds, and paralysis, and vomiting, all that kind of thing. Being stunned, crawling on ground, getting your finger chopped off, and all that stuff. And it's going to be the same thing with the plots, I mean I'm just going to keep snatching low hanging fruit until the game can generate something like a cheap fantasy game.

So there's always going to be a place for fixed RPGs, because people can be very creative. They can come up with something that's very immersive, although most of the time I'd just rather read a book. Because I don't have to play the same thing like seven times. So there's going to be a thing, where people will kinda, to make a fixed RPG I think, this all sort of vague, but. To make a fixed plot RPG people are just going to have to work harder. And they already do, you don't see a lot of things with really simple simple simple simple simple quests anymore. And stuff like that, you see quite a bit, but not so much. And people will just have to write at a higher standard and make games at a higher standard, not just because they're competing with a similar product. But because the procedural stuff is starting to match them. And I predict that's going to happen. It already is to some extent.

0:35:54
RPPR: Interesting. Of course then again, you can see popular games like Grand Theft Auto 4, which has had a record number of sales, I think like 500 million in its first week [liar! >.>]. With this sort of beginning, it has it's own randomly generated content where you're walking along this street and you don't know what sort of cars or people are going to be by. But it's mostly sort of a fixed narrative where you have limited choices you know, do you save this guy or do you kill him. And then later on, if you saved him, he can help you out himself. And things like that, but that's sort of an older style of game design philosophy, where it's sort of branching choices but they all converge at the same point, because obviously they can't procedurally generate cutscenes or dialog.

0:37:00
TA: Well I think they could if they tried.

0:37:05
RPPR Well, you can only have the voice actors say so much. But in Dwarf Fortress it's obvious that one of the things about it is its complexity. And not just the dwarves themselves, but you know, smelting ore to get metals and things like that. So what is your philosophy of game design in Dwarf Fortress, in terms of (one of the things I've wondered about is) at what point do you say “Okay this is too much, this is too complex. Let's cut it back. Lets simplify it.”?

0:37:37
TA: Well, yeah, so fortunately we don't run into that too much. Yeah, so there are certain thing; a lot of it is knowing ahead of time what's too much to bite off. Time travel for example, let's look at time travel. That's really hard, I mean there's the “I've got ten thousand people walking around, or whatever, they're not doing much right now. But certainly going back in time, I mean it's the thing that makes a lot of time travel theories sound silly, it's like everyone thinks there's a hard disk where every state of the universe has been saved, and you can just kind of go back. and just because you have memories, or something, you think every state of the universe has been saved and there is no reason to think that. And that's the kind of thing that'd be very difficult to do Time Travel in Dwarf Fortress because you'd have to rewind everything and go back to something, and it'd take hundreds and hundreds of gigs (gigabytes) to save that kind of information. I mean you could get away with little things, and try and kind of randomly set some stuff up but, it'd be a difficult project. That's the kind of thing we don't even think about, that's not going to happen.

But looking at geology or something, that's a part of the game the game that's obviously a bit overdone compared to some other parts of the game. At least at some level you've got the right type of stone, occurring in the right type of layer, or someone could have metamorphic rock or sedimentary rock and it'll have the right kinds of stuff in it. And there's a hundred something types of stone in the game, and so it's kinda crazy. I just kind of get in these moods, right? I'm like, okay let's work on geology, and so I work on it, I kind of set a vague time limit for myself, get as much done as I can and then move on to something else. And, at this point, sometimes I do go a little too far in one direction or another, like you can dye clothing right now specific colors, and so on. But you can't do some very basic stuff like send out a patrol to to look at, or assault a nearby town or something. Which, in the fantasy setting, is a much more basic activity than dying your clothes, or tanning a hide or something. So there's the focuses where I get kind of myopic and focus in on something for a while. But all in all, the basic idea would be to pick something that hasn't received a lot of attention, work on it for a while, and kind of bring the whole level of the game up and try and be comprehensive about it. You're never going to run into a real problem with sort of outdoing, you know, a modern computer, whatever, unless you just do a bad job with your optimizations, and so on. And you know, of course, I have some problems in that regard, when the game gets slow, and so on. That I'm going to work at, at some point. But, there's far more that you can add to a game like this, before you have to start worrying about, you know, bumping up into any walls, so it's more about rather than hitting some kind of technical restriction, it's more about trying to be comprehensive about it. And you know, sort of devote your attention to areas in equal measure. All though I've hardly could be said to have done that.

0:41:09
RPPR: People's computers being overwhelmed by Dwarf Fortress because of cats.

0:41:13
TA: You've heard of what?

0:41:15
RPPR: People's computers being overwhelmed in Dwarf Fortress because of the overpopulations, especially cats and other pets. The catsplosions, things like that.

0:41:25
TA: heh heh heh heh heh.

0:41:26
RPPR: Yeah, of course that's sort of an unintentional side effect of pets not needing to eat. And so they just keep breeding and breeding and breeding, till they're out of control.

0:41:36
TA: So as far as cats go... so yeah there's defiantly problems with optimization. Especially when you get up around 100 dwarves or something, and then you've got 50-60 cats going around, and all sorts of different pets, and so on. There are a number of problems there. Now when you say “an unintentional side effect of cats not eating”, the pets actually used to eat. And there were problems there too, because they'd eat you out of your fortresses. And so having them eat too much is a problem. So I took it out for the time being. And so you know you're going to get this overpopulation problem, but it's just a matter of balancing things out. Having the herbivores just be able to graze on grass for instance, they can't do that now. That would help a bit, although, of course, if they have a lot of grass, then it's not really going to help the population problem. But then if you could feed your cats, they could eat vermin although they'd run out after a time, because they'd eat out most of the vermin on the map. Dogs are another example, if wanted to feed them meat, or something; if you just had to feed them less, or something like that. I mean there are lots of ways to handle this. There's been a bit of discussion about this on the forums on my website (http://www.bay12games.com/) and uh, you know like anything it's just an ongoing issue.

0:43:00
RPPR: Yeah, heh heh, uhm. Of course the obvious solution would be to add a Spay or Neuter option to the butcher shops, or to the kennels I guess.

0:43:10
TA: Yeah, that came up as well. I think the consensus was that spaying was too advanced a technology, actually going in and doing some kind of operation like that. but just doing the castration would be fair game and castration is probably going into the game. Castration of your livestock and so on. Being able to do that. Uhm, I mean, it's something that you.. (nervous chuckle) I mean I guess it makes some people feel uncomfortable if you've got an animal being dragged off to the butcher shop to be denadded (what the hell?!), or whatever. But the uh, the worst part will be the bugs, where it messes up an item ID and then a Dwarf drags off another Dwarf, or something. but we'll weather that, we'll weather the storm there, eventually with better livestock management. :

0:44:33
RPPR: Alright, but what else did you, uh.. You know you mentioned earlier the wounds, the hit locations and things like that, which you've said you took from the Cyberpunk table top game. What else did you carry over from tabletop RPGs?

0:44:52
TA: So the idea here, the cyberpunk was largely inspirational for the wounds system. We've kind of had, we were playing D&D before we were playing cyberpunk, so with D&D and I think a lot of people experienced this at least, I don't know what the latest editions do, but I know we were up to, we started on first then went to second, I don't know the exact numbers or whatever. But there's these hit points, right? So you get frustrated, right? You're fighting these things, and hacking the crap out of them, you're kind of relying on your DM to say someones arm got chopped off. But you can't really chop his arm off unless he's dead, or something, because there weren't really a lot of rules in place, unless you make them yourself. And so cyberpunk was pretty refreshing we kind of wanted these things; we'd written a few little tiny little baby BASIC games, because we've been programming forever. And these really baby kind of games where someone's arm would get blown off or something. But cyberpunk kind of had it; it was in line with how we were thinking, definitely reinforced a lot of that. Because it was easy to roll up a character really fast, and they could get killed in one hit all the time, there was none of this “hit points get higher and higher” type of thing. and easy for them to get messed up, put in the hospital really fast, with no way to stop it. And then you can roll up another character. So this kind of meat grinder effect, that was also how we played a lot of our Roguelike games, these early sort of randomized text games. It's the same kind of thing where you'd run a character, they'd get wiped out, you get a scorelist. This is the kind of thing that came from our, sort of this synergy between these Roll Playing Games, and the Roguelike games we were playing, is this persistence of a record of what you've done, that you have in a roll playing game because you've still got your sheets, and you can talk about your characters and stuff. But with the computer games it's a little more difficult. So you have a record of what you've done, so it doesn't matter if you lose it. And this is kind of an important thing for us, why we have so many things that are records about the game that you're playing. Because in a fixed-plot game, for example, you just kind of race off and do this plot and it doesn't matter if it records if you won or not, you just watch the little ten-second video saying everything is cool or whatever. And that's fine, but if the game is more like a strategy game, or something, then you want to have something that says that you were there, or whatever. and that's kind of far afield from the original topic.

0:47:52
RPPR: Heh, no that's actually very interesting.

0:47:53
TA: (random babbling for 10 seconds)

0:48:02
TA: The wound system and the pacing that we got from that, because it's kind of funny, when we were playing D&D, we basically approached it like a computer game. I mean I'm not sure where this fits in the theory of roll playing game, because it wasn't about a competition or anything like that. But we played it sort of like these early SSI games, or something, you'd go into a room and kill some monsters, sort of a dungeon crawl or whatever. And move on and eventually finish the plot or whatever. So it all kind of flows together. but the ... uh... (random babbling) Well I guess the train of thought was derailed a bit there. I'm kind of losing my track now.

0:48:40
RPPR: Right, that's sort of the old school of gaming is the “Kick the doors down, play it as a competition.” It's actually still very popular, the tactical challenge of conquering your foes and also recording your victories and defeats. The persistence, people telling stories of their [characters].

0:49:10
TA: Well just with the tactical thing, it's like, we didn't really care about “high tactics” or anything, or uh, it was almost like a grind. It's kind of funny, you know you get these things in front of you we didn't really think much about. But ah, either competing with each other, or really overcoming.. I mean it's almost meditative, how you kind of get through these things. This is the difference, for us, the way we played D&D and the way we played Cyberpunk. With D&D it was sort of this thing where, we didn't have a fixed DM, this is my brother and I and some random friends, depending on where we were living at the time. And we'd kind of just set up an adventure, I mean those things would mostly be for comedic effect or something, like where you ended up, or whatever. But mostly you're just sort of grinding against these monsters, and you knew you were always going to win. There were pretty much no characters die; we didn't kill peoples characters, it was just a pain in the ass to kill someones character. It's all your friends at the table, or whatever, and if someones gonna get knocked out, at the time we were young enough we didn't have a strategy for dealing with that. And when you get older you can deal with that in all kinds of ways. But, we played cyberpunk completely differently though, I guess it was because it was so much easier to roll up a character, it just took a few minutes to generate a character. And so we'd just ah.. peoples characters would just die at random. And they'd just kind of get a new one that would be weaved into the storyline. And so it was a different way of playing that didn't really relate to how we were playing; we played D&D more like we'd play a game other people wrote, and we played Cyberpunk more like a game that we wanted to write, and that we eventually took a stab at writing. But we essentially played D&D like the old role playing games, even the console role playing games, like dragon warrior or whatever it's called. Just kind of going through the motions, more or less. And yeah, it was pretty much always like that.

0:50:58
RPPR: All right, uhm heh heh. Are there any particular stories from your tabletop games that you still remember of “Oh my character killed a dragon this way” or any other anecdotes that you still remember?

0:51:17
TA: Well, heh heh heh, the only ones that stuck with me are the ones that were horrible, right? Because uh, I mean we didn't really.. heh.. we were young, right? We were young, and so we were entranced with the foul things that you could do. And bending the rules and so on. I mean we'd go through these fighting, and stuff like that, but it didn't really matter, we rarely finished a game of D&D. But there would things like I think my brother brought out this white dragon once that no one really had a chance of beating. It was just way better than us. And so he allowed us to use one of those stoneshaping spells to turn the ah mountain side a giant butt and then stone-to-flesh and it turned into giant fleshy butt, and then used fireball to light a fart at the dragon. That's the kind of level we were operating at as children, and that's something that I remember. Now there's plenty of other things, we're standard adventurers right? But those don't stick with you quite the same way, I don't know why.. but ah, that's one of my precious memories? I guess I just shared it with you. So ah yeah.. I mean the other stuff just amounts to getting shot in the head, and that's cyberpunk, you have memories of that. I had a character named shooter I remember, got shot in the head. And uh... Yeah. That's right, it's pretty high brow, you gotta watch out.

0:52:56
RPPR: Yeah there's ah, actually one role playing game I've played a lot called “Call of Cthulhu” which is a horror game. And characters, like in Cyberpunk, die very frequently. All though instead of being shot in their head, they're usually eaten by Cthulhu or some other Monster From Beyond Time and Space. So my fondest stories are of characters dying horrible deaths. So I that's sort of a tradition of gaming, the weird and memorable deaths and other exploits, rather than the victories. But since those early days of gaming, you're innocent days of first edition D&D, games have sort of advanced. This game design theory, like The Big Model [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_role-playing_game#The_Forge_(1999%E2%80%932012)] with gaming narrativists and simulationists [transcribers note: Where the hell did he pull those words from?] [Other transcribers note: He got them from GNS theory, a model of rpg playstyles developed by Ron Edwards]. And then of course, 4th edition D&D is launching in about a month with a very large online component, where people can play on a virtual tabletop. So what are you're impressions of these later developments in tabletop games? Especially when you compare them to video games.

0:53:58
TA: Yeah, so I've only become kind of familiarized with this stuff recently, because someone would mention Dwarf Fortress on a blog and the blog would also have a lot of stuff to say about tabletop gaming, and so on. And it seems there's really a awful lot going on, because when I was a kid you'd kind of know about D&D, and then you'd bump into whatever you kind of bump into at your local hobby shop. And I imagine it's a different game everywhere, for us it was cyberpunk. And you had the ones you're interested in. And I mean I guess people can probably find them easier now that there's an internet, and so on. Which we didn't really have a connection with, when we were growing up. But it just seems like there's a crazy amount different things going on. And as far as how it relates to video games, I'm not.. I mean, some of the things you mentioned about the theories, and so on, I mean I guess there's some applicability there, and now that you've got these online things... It doesn't relate to anything that I'm doing so particularly or just video games in general, because it seems like it's kind of a, I don't know, I wouldn't want to say it's something like Second Life or something, but just a place where people can get together and kind of have their avatars in the grid, and the monsters, and they can move the pieces around, and so on. I mean it all sounds very cool to me, especially because it gets people that are unable to play anymore, or you know, back playing with each other, and so on. But I mean it's kind of hard to draw a parallel, although I guess it could happen. I mean I never really got into Neverwinter Nights, I guess it had something like that, where it kind of drew the ah, you could have a DM or something like that and kind of play it kind of half-way between a regular D&D campaign and more of a traditional computer game. But uhm, yeah idon.. Idunno, huh?

0:55:58
RPPR: Heh heh, alright fair enough. Uhm.. I've also went on the SomethingAwful forums to ask, one of your larger fan bases, to see if they had any questions. They had a couple of questions about Dwarf Fortress. Uhm. Lets see here.

0:56:20
RPPR: Do you'll ever be able to finish the game? Or are you going to have a couple people help work out on the game?

0:56:26
TA: As far as finishing the game I've no idea, really, that that will really happen. But as far as getting to the version 1.0 or whatever, I've put up my goals for that. And I plan to do that all on my own. I mean I'm not going to involve other programmers, that kind of thing. I just feel the project will slip out of my grasp, if there were other people really involved with writing it. Then I wouldn't know what some of the code was somewhere. And so if someone dipped into the project and then dipped out, I'd just be left kinda more clueless with it. I mean I guess managing large teams is a kind of skill people develop and they're able to pay for that as well. But for me this is the way I do things, programming on my own, designing with my brother, taking input from people, and plugging along till I get to where I'm going. I imagine it'll be some years till the version 1 goals are complete, and if I'm still around, meaning people are still supporting what I'm doing through the donations, and so on, then I'll just continue and do the additional goals I had, and keep working my weekend games, and so on, eventually get some other games out. and everything is just going fine without actually involving other people in the technical stuff.

0:58:15
RPPR: All right, uhm, that was user Brannick [transcriber note: I apologize to the person who's name I just mangled] by the way. This next question is from crackbaby (heh heh): what are you doing to backup the source code? What if you lose all the source code in a crash? Distribute cool-aid to all the fans and yourself?

0:58:30
TA: Nah, see suicide is not the answer. But, I'd be distraught if I lost everything so I back it up. I don't have it online anywhere, I'm kind of paranoid about that whole thing having some kind of online send-your-source-code-off-to-somewhere repository sourceforgy type thing or whatever. For some reason, I don't know if it's just 'cus I'm an old fogy or something, but it just doesn't feel secure to me. So I burn CDs. I just burn CDs. I've got CDs scattered all over everywhere, not just in my apartment, but other places as well there's CDs.

And so if my apartment were burglarized and they stole the laptop I'd be a day back. If my apartment burned down I'd probably be three or four days back. And, you know, if we had some kind of North Korean situation where we lost the state of Washington, well that'd be the last of my worries I guess, where the source was. But, I think I'm all right.

I had a problem I think, before I released [Dwarf Fortress], maybe a year before I released it, where I got set two weeks back. That's when I tightened things up a little bit. I don't forget to back up now, I always back up and I always leave stuff off-site and so on. So I'm not that worried about it, I don't think I need to go do anything online or anything. And I don't know anything about RAID or Hard Drives and all that kind of stuff; I just burn CDs, I just burn lots of CDs. I mean there's all kinds of things. I think I've got an External Hard Drive sitting on the floor over here somebody gave me for Christmas or something, I haven't used that yet, I could probably use that too. But yeah, nothing fancy.

=== 1:00:00 - 1:30:00 ===

1:00:06
RPPR: All right. This is from Bootkerchif [transcriber note: I apologize profusely for the mangling] who wants to know how much ramen you eat.

1:00:15
TA: Well it's one of those things right? You have a certain amount of support, and it's okay, but it'd feel more okay if you didn't eat. Much. But I'm not on ramen, I eat rice, rice.. and I buy flour, and make bread. And uh, occasionally I'll splurge on some of my favorite little things or whatever. But mostly it's beans, canned beans. Can of tomatoes, flour, and I make pizza type stuff with that. Not with cheese but just with garlic and tomatoes and spices and stuff. And more rice, and uh water. It's pretty exciting, real exciting.

1:00:58
RPPR: Heh, uhm it's interesting, I've been reading the forums and a lot of the discussion is based on the fans worrying about you. Because “oh is he getting enough donations to get by?”, “Should we donate more?” and things like that, it's like you have a very concerned fanbase, about your well being, and I think that's sort of unique in the game design world.

1:01:27
TA: Yeah, I don't think I'm complaining too much, I guess, but I can understand why they worry about that. I mean, but all the months, I mean, ever since the z-coordinate release I've made enough money to support myself every month, so it's been pretty good. I still don't have health insurance, but a part of that is like I mean you have a good month, then you have a bad month, then you have a good month then you have a bad month, I mean you really want to drop a extra I don't know how many hundreds of dollars it would be every month on some kind of gamble with your own health, or whatever. I mean the only health crisis I've had so far I've been able to pay for out of my pocket with having the total cost be less than the cost of health insurance. But it's a fools game to keep playing it that way. But at the same time I don't feel like I can afford it. I don't know. But yeah, well I guess if I rant on like that they'll just be more concerned. But it's all right everything's okay. They should still donate though, donations are cool.

1:02:42
RPPR: Right, heh of course. Uhm, Hamlin [transcribers note: Sorry if I screwed it up!] is asking what you thing of things like Regional Prospector [transcribers note: should link to the appropriate wiki pages.] , and Ricks Tools. And if those might be rolled into the game someday. I guess about Third-party mods and things like that. So.. uhm what are your thoughts on those tools.

1:02:59
TA: Yeaah... yeah, that one's like... It depends, it really really really depends, on the tool itself. There's kind of tools that are meant to replace the gross shortcomings of the interface, and those kinds of things , yeah over time I'll get to that. I mean I'm not going to roll in anyone's code, or even look at them. I've never actually looked at one of these tools. But the kind of things that they want, and have asked for in the suggestions forum that people have made tools for, some of those things like setting their professions an easier way and so on. All of that stuff eventually will come in.

Then there's sort of the Debug type tools or cheating I guess you could call it, whatever that means, tools. Like Regional Prospector, for example, where people want to have more information than I would give them in the sort of stock setting situation. But I don't really mind them having it or whatever. Those kinds of things, as options, those kinds of things can creep in. But adding optional settings is kind of lower priority than stuff that's affects everybody. At the same time there are a few things like that, you know, you can really see the want. People want to have those and the fewer utilities there are, occasionally I'm not sure how many bug reports come out of people using a utility incorrectly, because I don't really know all of whats out there. But even if that's infrequent that's something that's kind of a small issue.

Then there are things like people making an entire, sort of, 3D visualizer overhead things, and that's when I start kind of feeling just leery about it. Just like “well can I lose control of my project this way” or something, because someone's created a whole new interface for it and, you know, if it becomes popular an I going to become beholden to that person, even though it's my game. That kind of thing kind of worries the hell out of me sometimes. But uh, so far that hasn't been a problem. But when you have a game like where it's kind of, I've been working on it for a long time, it hasn't been released with a life substantially longer than a regular commercial game, because it's only been up for a year and something. But if it's still here after five years, that kind of thing will only tend to grow, and so sticking with the same project like that that's kind of a real risk to tying up your livelihood in one project, is that things like that will continue to happen. And it can only become more of an issue. But I'm not that worried about it, I go through phases of worry on it, but right now everything's okay.

1:05:31
RPPR: Alright, that's good. Lastly there's a question from Brown Moses asking if you'd like to see player fortresses that can be left to run themselves while the player makes another fortress. And how that could be integrated into the game world.

1:05:47
TA: Yeah, yeah. Now if we're talking about just sort of the retirement of a fortress or the temporary retirement of a fortress while you go and do other things. That's come up quite a few times, and depending on how well you want to do it, it's anywhere from a sort of a trivial to an impossible problem. So I didn't want to just do it the trivial way where you like “Yes I abandoned the fortress and it just kind of sits there in a stasis” or whatever, with the people kind of, the Dwarves just kind of siting there and you can go visit them, even though that kind of IS what happens now because your Dwarves don't migrate after you abandoned, but actually leaving it as a settlement and your Dwarves just kind of sit there. I was kind of hoping to get through some of the Caravan arc [transcriber note: link to bay12games DF caravan stuff.] stuff where I'm going to start tracking resources throughout the world. And you know maybe a little bit more but really it's the Caravan arc's that's one of the main missing things. And then we can start thinking about that, I mean I'm certainly not against it because there's this kind of thing where there were originally the game was all about you know you play your game you just totally flame out lose, and then continue on but I mean I can see how that's not something people are always going to want to do. Especially if they've in a sense won, they're in their region, their local map, they've found everything that's there to find, they repel outside invasions without difficulty, and they're done. And they just want to keep that as some kind of giant dwarven capital and then start a new outpost. There's nothing wrong with that. The impetus to do that might decrease in the future now, after three or four releases on the army arc, because they'll be able to send out armies and affect the world. And when they get these large fortresses that's when they'll be in the best position to do that and so it'll increase the play value of a fortress like that. But still the same issue will be lurking there. And I'm for that, not for the issue lurking there but for allowing people to retire their fortresses. When it starts getting more tricky is when someone's like “Yeah I want to stop (sp?) this fortress for four game months while I'm working on this other project and then go back to the other fortress.” What should have happened to your fortress in between? You can sort of gloss over this by holding everyone in stasis, but that's the kind of thing I said I didn't want to do, I'd rather try and come up with a solution. It opens up a few tricky issues.

1:08:42
RPPR: So Tarn, what is next for Dwarf Fortress? What is coming soon and what are your upcoming plans for it? Is there anything you'd like to announce for Dwarf Fortress?

1:09:00
TA: Well right now we wanted to.. the main goal, which has actually been the main goal for more than a year is to get armies in the game, doing interesting things. Right now if you're running Dwarf Fortress you can be attacked by goblins or something. But with that whole world generation, placing goblin towers throughout the world, and human towns and elves have their places and Dwarves have their places, and so on. None of that really comes into play right now, in adventure mode you can visit those places but it's very static. So there are lots of ways to make a world come alive and become more dynamic, with places being removed and founded and so on. But a natural way to do that fits the genre is to have people killing each other, right? So I've been working on armies for a while, I've actually announced what I've been calling the army arc of development about what, January of last year? And I thought, “well okay I have to do the seamless maps and the z-axis stuff first” so I did all that and now I'm back to the army arc. And started ??? with world generation so that instead of just running forward a thousand years where nothing really happens they spread out, but they don't fight each other when they bump into each other, and nothing really happens when they bump into each other. Now though, it's really been cut lose, they'll fight with each other and abduct each other's children, steal each other's stuff to the extent that stuff is defined right now, it really isn't. Meaning there's no resources or trade or anything like that. But they'll raze each other's cities and build a Assyrian style corpse mounds and pillars, stretch their skin out over the walls and all that kind of stuff that you read when you're doing ancient history. And they'll enslave each other and the slaves will grow up in their new civilization and half to deal with that. It's all very sort of skeletal right now, there's not a lot. I'm fleshing it out, but just having that frame work in place is going to help a lot. And the stage after that we're going to make this stuff happen in the regular game so it'll take all that stuff that its been doing and allow it to continue on. Which is kind of the whole point so that you can interact with armies and if you get invaded in fortress mode you'll actually be invaded by an actual army which has something to do with the world rather than something that was generated for you. So that will cap in in three stages the first stage will just be getting that to happen at all, having the armies move around and having some interaction with the adventurer making adventure mode a bit more fun. Then I'll do the part where armies can actually attack you in Dwarf mode. And then finally, the thing that a lot of people have probably been looking forward to, is having you be able to send out armies from your fortress and cause trouble all over the world. At least as far as you can manage to stretch your tendrils. It's going to take a while, this first release is taking quite a bit longer than I thought. It's already been three or four months? I've gotten over most of the big hurdles now. But that's the direction things are going to go, just trying to make the world more dynamic through violence, and then it'll be more dynamic through trade and so on later. I mean I've got a caravan arc, diplomacy arc and so on, but this is kind of the natural one to start on.

1:12:33
RPPR: War comes first..

1:12:34
TA: That's right.

1:12:35
RPPR: Alright, very interesting, I look forward to seeing the sagas of armies marching on each other in the near future. Do you have a time frame on when the next release is going to be uploaded or released to the public?

1:12:54
TA: Yeah, I'm not sure. I've just gotten over the worst of it. I'd be hoping to get it out next month finally. But uh, every time I promise something it doesn't come true... You know? So I hope it comes out in June. You'd really expect that to happen.

1:13:11
RPPR: Cross your fingers.

1:13:13
TA: Yeah, 'cause this is not like the Z-Axis release took nine months to do. But that was a huge change. Adding a third coordinate to the game, and all kinds of other stuff that came under that release. And this one you're not really going to notice (HaaHAHHA) that much, I mean you'll have the world generation, but then when you start playing the actual game it'll be like “It's the same as usual..” 'cause those subsequent releases haven't happened yet where I actually make the stuff matter. So, uh.. I mean a lot of people, hopefully they're not getting too impatient with me but it has to go this way, because you have to set up the frame work first.

1:13:47
RPPR: Right, I've read a lot of your donation stories that are posted on the SA[something awful] forums. I really liked the Fish Dwarf saga today.

1:13:54
TA: Yeah, the guy.. yeah ...... We had this miscommunication were he, ah, 'cuz he sent two donations seven days apart. And so I was like “Okay I'll send you a cliffhanger and conclusion” right? And he's like “Well I don't really want the story to end but uh, okay.” And I was like “No I don't really want to end it, I just meant a cliffhanger and a conclusion to that part of the story.” and he's like “Well you know if you have to end the story, you have to end the story.” So now apparently I'm ending fish Dwarf. Ending fish Dwarf with a story that's going to be an epic conclusion to the fish Dwarf right now, he's entombed.

1:14:24
RPPR: Yeah in the underwater cavern.

1:14:26
TA: The underwater part, yeah yeah. I mean my brother writes most of those things. It's kind of unfortunate sometimes because uh, people post them on Something Awful and I will usually attribute either to my brother or myself but often times the attributions aren't included. I'm writing fish Dwarf and most of the other ones being posted were written by him, I think. I mean we have different writing styles, I tend to be a bit more dense and mess around with the words, and he has this sort of powerful more cinematic way of writing things. But yeah, I'm looking forward to finishing fish Dwarf, I have a bunch of other ones to continue first though. I tend to fall behind because I'm always doing the programming stuff I've got six or seven continuations to write, six or seven crayon art things to draw. My brothers' all caught up, he does the new ones, and they're all caught up. But I'm a month behind, I'm always a month behind, but uh 'cause everyone sent me money on my birthday.

1:15:33
RPPR: Nice that's a nice little gift.

1:15:34
TA: Yeah yeah, no it's a good birthday present. I got like three thousand dollars. I was like “Wooow..”

1:15:37
RPPR: Wow, yeah.

1:15:38
TA: Like holy sh*

1:15:40
RPPR: We've made like five bucks in google ads, so far.

1:15:46
TA: People have been telling me about google ads and stuff and I was like the rates don't seem that good unless you've got like some kind of site that's just meant to people in and give them career advices.

1:15:53
RPPR: It's all about the click-throughs, if you get a lot of click-throughs then you can actually get a pretty decent thing. But if you're not getting fifty thousand views a day or something, ten thousand views a day, it really it's not worth bothering with. I mean, on the other hand you can throw them up there it doesn't really cost you anything to put it up there so.

1:16:10
TA: Yeah, well I mean it does in a sense, if you've got this kind of image we do of this kind of “independent, commercial free environment” then I don't know, having the google ads there is kind of something I was trying to lean away from. But yeah, I don't care that much myself.

1:16:25
RPPR: It's going to be peanuts, I mean at best you'll just make some hosting fees back. So I don't know. How much bandwidth do you use a month?

1:16:34
TA: Yeah, it's what.. two hundred gigabytes, uhm. About? But the cap on my plan is five hundred.

1:16:42
RPPR: Who do you use?

1:16:43
TA: Unfortunately I'm on Verio, they're one of the biggest ones. And it was a reasonable plan when I signed up in 2000. Heh heh heh. But now it's crap, I mean you see these plans all over the place that offer four times as much I've got at half the price. But moving is worse for me right now

1:17:00
RPPR: It is, it is a pain. I'm using Bluehost right now, I get for like $95 a year I get like six thousand gigs of transfer a month and six hundred gigs of storage. And so, I mean I maybe a hundred gigs a month but I'm moving MP3's so even a few hundred downloads of a file.

1:17:21
TA: Yeah but it's that kind of thing I see where people are just, it's basically the situation I was talking about, I've seen people getting about six thousand a month or whatever and I was like “Oh man, I could use six thousand a month.” So right now I'm mirroring my downloads, I don't know my download counts anymore because I've got three other people mirroring the downloads and I don't have stats on those. So I wouldn't have to if I had that, so I might move sometime, I could try. Because I'm probably moving forums soon, that was the main thing, 's 'cause I've got this creaky creaky ass old 2001 Ultimate Bulletin Board. And I need to move that, and I can't really move it it's kind of just stuck in the site. It's just this nasty old thing.

1:18:01
RPPR: Exporting all the users 's going to be a pain

1:18:03
TA: Yeah, just exporting everything. So I'm just going to start clean but maybe I should start clean somewhere else.

1:18:06
RPPR: I guess, do you go to any of the big cons of the year or anything like that?

1:18:09
TA: I never hear about them, people are like “Are you going to the...” there was some game dev one in San Fransisco or something, in February. And, is that GDC? I don't know what the hell they're called.

1:18:18
RPPR: Uh, Game Developers Conference, yeah.

1:18:21
TA: Yeah, and so they're like “Are you going to that in February?” and they wrote me that on like February 10th or something, I was like “Noo didn't even hear about it.” I mean I'm not sure what I think 'cuase it's a hassel for me to travel or whatever. And I'm not sure what the benefit is, getting together with a bunch of game developers.

1:18:40
RPPR: Get more donations!

1:18:42
TA: Yeah I guess, if you get actual people, I mean if it's like a game developer, if it's just developers, then it's like well.. You know, maybe that'd be cool, but I don't really like a lot of what they're doing so it's like I just go there and be like “ooh great...” I mean it's not their fault right? They've got all those corporate people above them who are essentially co-designers or whatever. S'like that guy you were talking to, I don't remember his name, the White Wolf guy who did the blood din pirates (???) was like where'd you get that name from and he's like “Well they gave us the name and we just had to work from there”

1:19:24
RPPR: Heh, I've done freelance game writing that's pretty much how it is. Like “We want something on Jack the Ripper” okay I'll write something on Jack the Ripper. Alright, you want twenty-five hundred words, I'll do twenty-five hundred words.

1:19:34
TA: Yeah, and then if you go too far afield it's like “No no, we just wanted it to be garden variety Jack the Ripper..”

1:19:40
RPPR: Yeah exactly.

1:19:41
TA: Yeah it sounded too bad with the crap he was doing with the underwater vampires and shit but they had some kind of eastern shit coming out or something.

1:19:47
RPPR: Oh yeah yeah yeah, that was vampires in Japan and Asia are more alien than the vampires that live underwater, haven't had human contact for thousands of years or whatever.

1:19:58
TA: Yeah, because they suck karma or something, it's like Karma Vampires. I like it when they cut loose though, because those are the books I like to go buy and then you just read them and let them stew. I think my favorite D&D book was, I don't know if it was 2nd Edition, Manual of the Planes was really interesting. Because they're just kind of, whatever came out of their mind, they're just like “and this plane is filled with Apes and giant bird like creatures” and stuff, and they're just going nuts. And then you read the Manual of the Planes for the later editions when they start getting all \Cutter and Burke\ [need proper names for authors] and Planescape on your ass and you're like it's not apes and birdlike creatures it's like (ancient English professor accent) “There will be 2d4 Yeti, and 1d2 rocks” I'm like whaat?

1:20:43
RPPR: Yeah, there have been two RPGs that I really want to get, one is called CthuluTech it's like Cthulu mythos all these Elder gods and alien horrors and giant robots. Fighting each other, and it looks really cool and I haven't been able to get it.

1:20:57
TA: So it's kind of like Rifts or something, where it's kind of stuck together. I've never actually played Rifts.

1:21:05
RPPR: Yeah rifts is kind of cludgy but it's fun especially if you're a teenager and you're like “Ooh robots and dragons and ninjas aah great. We're going to blow this shit up”

1:21:18
TA: Heh heh heh heh. Yeah I never played like that but my friend Alan (Alen?) from high school. They had this ritual, before I moved there he was with this group of roleplayers and they had this ritual where they would all roll up these 40th level characters or something, and they'd kill Odin. (laughing) it's like every week they'd kill Odin. It's like some kind of super power trip, I was like goddamn.

1:21:38
RPPR: Yeah I've been in games like that, that can be FUN you know? That whole “I've got three digit hitpoints,” “I've got four digit hitpoints,” you know, “I've got a strength of three digits,” something like that.

1:21:48
TA: Yeah where they start talking about 'Mega damage' and shit heh..

1:21:52
RPPR: Oh yeah, that is ridiculous. There is one con I'm going to this year, and it's GenCon the big one in Indianapolis.

1:22:00
TA: Yeah I've heard of that.

1:22:01
RPPR: Yeah it's huge, there's like forty-fifty thousand people there. And that's where they announced D&D 4th Edition last year. And yeah, I'm going just to meet other broadcasters just hang out and have fun or whatever. That would be, I'm sure if you go there you would find quite a few Dwarf Fortress players there.

1:22:34
TA: you'd have to advertise somehow, probably just need to pay some kind of fee to set up a booth, or something.

1:22:47
RPPR: Well yeah, to set up in the convention. I mean you can just walk around.

1:22:51
TA: I could just wear a “I wrote Dwarf Fortress” T-shirt or something?

1:22:54
RPPR: That would pretty much get you a crowd, I'd bet. Because they also showcase video games there, so all the World of Warcraft and Age of Conan people will be like “Aahh, is that? Are you really the Dwarf Fortress guy? That's awesome!” Or you could just sell Boatmurdered T-shirts that would be a great merchandising opportunity get some artists to draw burning Dwarves running around and put a t-shirt on it.

1:23:20
TA: I could hire some circus performers and set them on fire.

1:23:23
RPPR: Yeah yeah, some midgets uhh...

1:23:27
TA: Yeah yeah, though you have to get a bearded.. Have you seen, I don't know if this is a PC question or not, but have you seen one of the little people but with a big ass beard. I haven't really seen that.

1:23:34
RPPR: I've never really seen a bearded one. Uhh, a bearded Dwarf, or midget.

1:23:38
TA: Yeah, I don't know.. do they shave? Or do people like willow (??) they just can't grow that shit.

1:23:43
RPPR: Uuuhm I think, genetically, some of them can't but like others probably could, they just don't. I think I've seen... like the Lollypop Guild, I think that was fake, but in the Wizard of Oz, they had beards. Right?

1:23:58
TA: Aaaaah man that's been a while. But it's possible. But I'm just afraid that if I go in and type “Bearded Little Person” into the google images, I mean I think I've got my porn filter on, I think I'll be okay, I think I'll survive. But ah. Yeah, no it's just yeah, I've no idea I really don't have the slightest idea. Nah, they've got little kids holding beards over their faces and stuff. But that Bearded Dragons, you know the lizard? They've got them stacked, they've got four stacked on top of each other. I don't know what that has to do with that but.

1:24:32
RPPR: I actually have a Bearded Dragon, weird that you mentioned it.

1:24:35
TA: Yeah I had an Iguana but you can't mess with the Iguana. It got six feet long and then you can't put it on the table anymore. It was bitter. It was bitter because we didn't know to feed it calcium the first three years so it got this really giant overbite and would bite people. It was not trained.

1:24:50
RPPR: Yeah Bearded Dragons are about as pacifist of a lizard as you can have, they just do not care.

1:25:00
TA: yeah there's nothing on google. Google's doing me wrong here, ah. I mean I'm not going to type bearded Dwarf because that's like a waste of time, I think I'll just get D&D stuff that way. But I tried bearded a bunch of other stuff and nothing! Nothing, I mean that's intriguing to me.

1:25:14
RPPR: Interesting, maybe wikipedia will say “Oh they can't grow beards,” or whatever so.

1:25:17
TA: Yeah, because it seems strange. I don't know the roots of the mythology and so on were but it probably doesn't come from that because those Dwarves have giant beards.

1:25:28
RPPR: I don't know it's like one of those things like now all Dwarves are supposed to have scottish accents.

1:25:33
TA: Yeah yeah, heavy drinking, scottish accents. Ah no no here we go, the Dwarf Don Sebastian de Mora by Velasquez in his portrait now they got a serious guy, but he's got a big honking civil war looking beard.

1:25:56
RPPR: Like a ZZ Top type beard.

1:25:59
TA: Ah, well it's not quite like General Longstreet type of beard but it's got the curling mustache with a giant kind of goatee. And it goes way down, yeah so.. So maybe it's just out of style. Maybe it's more of a style thing these days

1:26:21
RPPR: Yeah, or it could be just practical issues, I mean you don't want it to get too big then you'd be tripping over it or something like that.

1:26:29
TA: Ahem, ah heh yeah. Uh, Jesus.. I hope none of this goes on the podcast now.

1:26:35
RPPR: Well I can edit that part out, yeah. There would just be this weird gap where “blah blah, oh what about Dwarves,” and then silence “And then we'll talk about something blah blah blah.”

1:26:48
TA: Yeah, I don't know why my mind is flowing that direction these days but yeah. Uh yeah, that was just an intriguing question to me. Uhm, but there you go, it's been answered at least, back in the good old days when they could have beards.

1:27:00
RPPR: One final question: What is your personal favorite game of all time? You know, you're on a desert island, got one game, could be a video game can be a tabletop game assuming it'll be you and your brother so you have someone to play with if it's multiplayer. What would be your one desert island game?

1:27:19
TA: Huuh, so it depends, is this a desert island game for posterity's sake, or just something I'd kind of be a fiend on?

1:27:26
RPPR: Yeah, something you'd be a fiend on, something you would be able to play the longest, get the most play time out of.

1:27:32
TA: Ah, yeah, because I get bored with things pretty fast, I mean there are games like Starflight and stuff where it's one of my favorite games, but I can't really play it now. It was really an eye opener for me, very influential when I was a child. But now? Yeah I hardly play anything anymore, I'm off minesweeper I don't play that anymore. Transport Tycoon, I think Transport Tycoon has my largest record as far as just playing. My brother and I played that once for forty-six hours straight switching off, we switched off when we had to go to classes because we were both in school at that time. But not anymore you kind of get burned out on stuff. Right now I'm totally burned out on everything so ah.. (laugh) It's a harder question to answer that way. Things like Chess and so on and Go I play those, but meh, especially with my brother I mean he's better at chess than I am and I'm better than Go than he is so we'd just be miserable hehe.

1:28:30
RPPR: Okay well what's the game that has your fondest memories?

1:28:33
TA: Ah yeah, there's lots of games like that like I said. Starflight, going exploring the little critters, going to the planets. A lot of people don't know there were randomly generated critters with pretty long paragraphs describing them. And we, my brother and I, would make these journal entries where we'd draw the picture and describe them and just do that for days and days and days and days. We have fond memories of Seven Cities of Gold, and arcade games we played a lot of like Gauntlet and so on. And some of those D&D things Cyberpunk things we talked about are way up there. A few Roguelike memories, mostly involving obscene names of characters that get immortalized on the score list. Like we were playing Ragnarok once and that was the first game, ah not the first game, maybe Hack was for us, but it was one of those ones where you can polymorph, right? And so we had a character, and we were just naming our characters, and you know you go through them one at a time over a few minutes so the names just start to degenerate and we eventually just got down to one where the name was just “Fucker” we had this guy named Fucker, right? Because you're just playing you know, play play play play play. And then he got transformed somehow into this thing, we don't know how to say it really, but it looked like Jackass, so we got immortalized on the high score list, it was our best game ever, and it was immortalized at the top. We didn't think about the name at all but we got stuck with “Fucker the Jackass” on the top of our high score list for a year or so. And there's all kinds of things, I mean, you can kind of go on forever. But nothing new really, but yeah just all this old foggie type stuff, thirty and up.

1:30:55
RPPR: Sometimes the old games are the best games.

1:30:58
TA: Well, yeah I like them.

1:31:00
RPPR: Alright well, thank you very much for joining us at Role Playing Public Radio and next, I'm sure within a couple months or a year when the army arc comes out we'll come back and talk to you again, and thanks a lot.

1:31:24
TA: Okay thanks.

=== Links ===
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory

[[Category:Game development]]

Night creature

2026-05-07T10:16:49Z

Silverwing235: /* Planned night creatures */ fix formatting

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
:''Now you will know why you fear the night.''
[[File:night_creatures_sprites_preview.png|right]]A '''night creature''' is a member of a class of hostile [[creature]]s; many of which are generated procedurally, whether as a full creature, through an [[interaction token|interaction]] changing a normal creature, or a mixture of both. [[Night troll]]s, which are themselves only a type of night creature, are sometimes also referred to as night creatures.

Note that some night creatures are not inherently hostile, despite their form, as some can be [[visitor]]s to the player's [[Fortress mode|fortress]], or can be played as in [[adventure mode]].

==Types==
Most types of night creature are depicted in the game as either a '''ñ''' or '''Ñ''' of a different color. Some night creatures flash between the Ñ and a basic creature tile, especially undead. The currently existing night creatures are the following:

===Magical beings===
* [[File:necromancer_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} [[Necromancer]]s are [[historical figure]]s that have found the secrets of life and death, becoming immortal and gaining the ability to animate the dead.
* [[File:nightmare_sprite_preview.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|0:1}} [[Nightmare]]s are frightening monsters who do not occur naturally, but can be summoned by necromancers and demons{{verify}} in battle.

===Monsters===
* [[File:bogeyman_sprite.png|17px]] / {{Tile|ñ|0:1}} [[Bogeyman|Bogeymen]], which ambush lone travellers in regions dominated by [[Sphere|nightmares or darkness]] at night, chasing them relentlessly until the victim can retreat indoors or manages to survive until daylight. Unlike other night creatures, bogeymen do not have individual histories—rather, they are generated when needed in adventure mode.
* [[File:experiment_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|A|4:1}}–{{Tile|Z|2:1}} [[Experiment]]s are a variety of transformations originating from necromancers' experimentation on captured citizens and livestock - they sometimes escape to the wild, and intelligent ones can rejoin civilization. Unlike other night creatures, they are represented by regular alphabet letters. Intelligent experiments are colored red, while failed creations and others are colored green.
* [[File:night_troll_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|2:0}} [[Night troll]]s, which abduct certain civilized creatures of the opposite gender, transform them into a spouse, and mate with them.
* [[File:werebeast_sprite.png|20px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:0}} [[Werebeast]]s are former worshipers cursed by their patron deities for profaning their temples, or those to whom they transferred that curse. At the full moon, they will transform into a ravenous monster based off a random creature.

===Undead===
* [[File:animated_dead_example_anim.gif|21px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:0}} [[Undead|Animated dead]] are the walking corpses and corpse parts that arise in [[evil]] regions, or under the thrall of a necromancer or [[mummy]]. Particularly evil regions may also transform living creatures into thralls or husks via their unusual weather. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:ghost_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|7:1}} [[Ghost]]s, the restless spirits of the dead that weren't properly memorialized. Depending on circumstances, they can interact with the living in various ways.
* [[File:infected_ghoul_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} [[Infected ghoul]]s are undead who were infected with contagious ghoulish conditions by necromancers. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:intelligent_undead_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:1}} [[Intelligent undead]] - independent, intelligent corporeal undead that do not fit into other categories. They are raised by necromancers, mummies, and [[demon]]s to help with their plots of conquering the world. They have special powers, such as syndrome attacks, controlling the weather, and repelling other creatures.
* [[File:mummy_preview_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:1}} [[Mummy|Mummies]] are the dead rulers of civilizations, interred in [[tomb]]s or, occasionally. in [[catacombs]]. They will arise if disturbed and lay curses (of misfortune, so far) on the trespasser.
* [[File:vampire_sprite.png|13px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:0}} [[Vampire]]s are undead blood-drinkers (usually spawned by divine wrath, as with werebeasts) that can pass for living humanoids, moving on when suspicion of them grows too much. Occasionally they might start immortality cults instead, and might make a bid to seize power over a whole civilization.

==Planned night creatures==
In addition to the existing night creatures, and plans to expand them, [http://www.bay12games.com/media/df_talk_14_transcript.html Dwarf Fortress Talk #14] describes future plans for other types of night creatures, which are as follows:

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} Stalkers, undead that rise from brutal killings and executions, taking on aspects related to their death.
* {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} Constructed creatures, like Frankenstein's monster, with mismatched limbs, sutures, and grafted weapons. [[Experiment]]s seem to at least partly be an implementation of this.
* {{Tile|Ñ|7:0}} Animated furniture, to be found in certain haunted houses; making sounds, moving about, and attacking the unwitting souls entering them. They will flash between their night creature tile and their basic item tile.
* {{Tile|Ñ|2:1}} Various sorts of evil beasts, such as evil rotten capybaras or evil animated trees.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:0}} Monsters of the sea, including aquatic hags and trolls such as Grendel, as well as monstrous sea creatures such as evil carp.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:1}} Cursed people of the sea, such as undead pirates or seafarers.

The file ``generators.lua`` defines a number of tables for generating night creatures, with a number of unused classes. Procedural variants of most undead creatures (rather than a [[syndrome]]) and the planned categories listed above are listed in ``creatures.night_creature``. The names of two new categories were revealed this way:

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} "Sorcerer", potentially using [[magic]].
* {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} "Royal", potentially holding [[noble]] positions, such as a [[monarch]].

[[File:night_creatures_preview.jpg|thumb|300px|center|When the night comes, they can wait forever.]]
{{Translation| dwarven = anan mes | elvish = lithéme amu | goblin = anu los | human = kulur mos}}
{{Creatures}}
[[ru:Night creature]]

Conversationalist

2026-05-05T22:21:10Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
'''Conversationalist''' is a [[social skill]] used by dwarves while making friends. Dwarves that are particularly good at this tend to make friends easily and will often rise to [[mayor|mayoral]] positions.

To train this skill, let dwarves idle and chatter amongst themselves. Dwarves who [[personality facet#GREGARIOUSNESS|prefer to be alone]] can never learn this skill and [[personality facet#BASHFUL|bashful]] dwarves can only gain [[experience]] in this skill while under the influence of alcohol. Dwarves who [[personality facet#FRIENDSHIP|are put off by friendship]] and dwarves who [[personality facet#LEISURE_TIME|are offended by leisure time]] can gain experience in this skill.

This skill is, in fortress mode - in contrast to all other social skills - a measure of how many social interactions the dwarf had so far in the fort (although in case of migrants, the starting experience in this skill needs to be subtracted), since this skill is only gained via socializing, but not via anything else, and any social interaction gives exactly 1 experience.

A high skill level might increase the chance of a social interaction happening between two dwarves.

{{skills}}

Conversationalist

2026-05-05T22:20:10Z

Silverwing235: typos,punctuation etc

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
'''Conversationalist''' is a [[social skill]] used by dwarves while making friends. Dwarves that are particularly good at this tend to make friends easily and will often rise to [[mayor|mayoral]] positions.

To train this skill, let dwarves idle and chatter amongst themselves. Dwarves who [[personality facet#GREGARIOUSNESS|prefer to be alone]] can never learn this skill and [[personality facet#BASHFUL|bashful]] dwarves can only gain [[experience]] in this skill, while under the influence of alcohol. Dwarves who [[personality facet#FRIENDSHIP|are put off by friendship]] and dwarves who [[personality facet#LEISURE_TIME|are offended by leisure time]] can gain experience in this skill.

This skill is, in fortress mode - in contrast to all other social skills - a measure of how many social interactions the dwarf had so far in the fort (although in case of migrants, the starting experience in this skill needs to be subtracted), since this skill is only gained via socializing, but not via anything else, and any social interaction gives exactly 1 experience.

A high skill level might increase the chance of a social interaction happening between two dwarves.

{{skills}}

Night creature

2026-05-05T18:32:21Z

Silverwing235: /* Planned night creatures */

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
:''Now you will know why you fear the night.''
[[File:night_creatures_sprites_preview.png|right]]A '''night creature''' is a member of a class of hostile [[creature]]s; many of which are generated procedurally, whether as a full creature, through an [[interaction token|interaction]] changing a normal creature, or a mixture of both. [[Night troll]]s, which are themselves only a type of night creature, are sometimes also referred to as night creatures.

Note that some night creatures are not inherently hostile, despite their form, as some can be [[visitor]]s to the player's [[Fortress mode|fortress]], or can be played as in [[adventure mode]].

==Types==
Most types of night creature are depicted in the game as either a '''ñ''' or '''Ñ''' of a different color. Some night creatures flash between the Ñ and a basic creature tile, especially undead. The currently existing night creatures are the following:

===Magical beings===
* [[File:necromancer_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} [[Necromancer]]s are [[historical figure]]s that have found the secrets of life and death, becoming immortal and gaining the ability to animate the dead.
* [[File:nightmare_sprite_preview.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|0:1}} [[Nightmare]]s are frightening monsters who do not occur naturally, but can be summoned by necromancers and demons{{verify}} in battle.

===Monsters===
* [[File:bogeyman_sprite.png|17px]] / {{Tile|ñ|0:1}} [[Bogeyman|Bogeymen]], which ambush lone travellers in regions dominated by [[Sphere|nightmares or darkness]] at night, chasing them relentlessly until the victim can retreat indoors or manages to survive until daylight. Unlike other night creatures, bogeymen do not have individual histories—rather, they are generated when needed in adventure mode.
* [[File:experiment_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|A|4:1}}–{{Tile|Z|2:1}} [[Experiment]]s are a variety of transformations originating from necromancers' experimentation on captured citizens and livestock - they sometimes escape to the wild, and intelligent ones can rejoin civilization. Unlike other night creatures, they are represented by regular alphabet letters. Intelligent experiments are colored red, while failed creations and others are colored green.
* [[File:night_troll_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|2:0}} [[Night troll]]s, which abduct certain civilized creatures of the opposite gender, transform them into a spouse, and mate with them.
* [[File:werebeast_sprite.png|20px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:0}} [[Werebeast]]s are former worshipers cursed by their patron deities for profaning their temples, or those to whom they transferred that curse. At the full moon, they will transform into a ravenous monster based off a random creature.

===Undead===
* [[File:animated_dead_example_anim.gif|21px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:0}} [[Undead|Animated dead]] are the walking corpses and corpse parts that arise in [[evil]] regions, or under the thrall of a necromancer or [[mummy]]. Particularly evil regions may also transform living creatures into thralls or husks via their unusual weather. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:ghost_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|7:1}} [[Ghost]]s, the restless spirits of the dead that weren't properly memorialized. Depending on circumstances, they can interact with the living in various ways.
* [[File:infected_ghoul_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} [[Infected ghoul]]s are undead who were infected with contagious ghoulish conditions by necromancers. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:intelligent_undead_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:1}} [[Intelligent undead]] - independent, intelligent corporeal undead that do not fit into other categories. They are raised by necromancers, mummies, and [[demon]]s to help with their plots of conquering the world. They have special powers, such as syndrome attacks, controlling the weather, and repelling other creatures.
* [[File:mummy_preview_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:1}} [[Mummy|Mummies]] are the dead rulers of civilizations, interred in [[tomb]]s or, occasionally. in [[catacombs]]. They will arise if disturbed and lay curses (of misfortune, so far) on the trespasser.
* [[File:vampire_sprite.png|13px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:0}} [[Vampire]]s are undead blood-drinkers (usually spawned by divine wrath, as with werebeasts) that can pass for living humanoids, moving on when suspicion of them grows too much. Occasionally they might start immortality cults instead, and might make a bid to seize power over a whole civilization.

==Planned night creatures==
In addition to the existing night creatures, and plans to expand them, [http://www.bay12games.com/media/df_talk_14_transcript.html Dwarf Fortress Talk #14] describes future plans for other types of night creatures, which are as follows:

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} Stalkers, undead that rise from brutal killings and executions, taking on aspects related to their death.
* {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} Constructed creatures, like Frankenstein's monster, with mismatched limbs, sutures, and grafted weapons. [[Experiment]]s seem to at least partly be an implementation of this.
* {{Tile|Ñ|7:0}} Animated furniture, to be found in certain haunted houses; making sounds, moving about, and attacking the unwitting souls entering them. They will flash between their night creature tile and their basic item tile.
* {{Tile|Ñ|2:1}} Various sorts of evil beasts, such as evil rotten capybaras or evil animated trees.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:0}} Monsters of the sea, including aquatic hags and trolls such as Grendel, as well as monstrous sea creatures such as evil carp.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:1}} Cursed people of the sea, such as undead pirates or seafarers.

``generators.lua`` defines a number of tables for generating night creatures, with a number of unused classes. Procedural variants of most undead creatures (rather than a [[syndrome]]) and the planned categories listed above are listed in ``creatures.night_creature``. The names of two new categories were revealed this way.

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} "Sorcerer", potentially using [[magic]].
* {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} "Royal", potentially holding [[noble]] positions, such as a [[monarch]].

[[File:night_creatures_preview.jpg|thumb|300px|center|When the night comes, they can wait forever.]]
{{Translation| dwarven = anan mes | elvish = lithéme amu | goblin = anu los | human = kulur mos}}
{{Creatures}}
[[ru:Night creature]]

Night creature

2026-05-05T18:29:53Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Superior}}
{{av}}
:''Now you will know why you fear the night.''
[[File:night_creatures_sprites_preview.png|right]]A '''night creature''' is a member of a class of hostile [[creature]]s; many of which are generated procedurally, whether as a full creature, through an [[interaction token|interaction]] changing a normal creature, or a mixture of both. [[Night troll]]s, which are themselves only a type of night creature, are sometimes also referred to as night creatures.

Note that some night creatures are not inherently hostile, despite their form, as some can be [[visitor]]s to the player's [[Fortress mode|fortress]], or can be played as in [[adventure mode]].

==Types==
Most types of night creature are depicted in the game as either a '''ñ''' or '''Ñ''' of a different color. Some night creatures flash between the Ñ and a basic creature tile, especially undead. The currently existing night creatures are the following:

===Magical beings===
* [[File:necromancer_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} [[Necromancer]]s are [[historical figure]]s that have found the secrets of life and death, becoming immortal and gaining the ability to animate the dead.
* [[File:nightmare_sprite_preview.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|0:1}} [[Nightmare]]s are frightening monsters who do not occur naturally, but can be summoned by necromancers and demons{{verify}} in battle.

===Monsters===
* [[File:bogeyman_sprite.png|17px]] / {{Tile|ñ|0:1}} [[Bogeyman|Bogeymen]], which ambush lone travellers in regions dominated by [[Sphere|nightmares or darkness]] at night, chasing them relentlessly until the victim can retreat indoors or manages to survive until daylight. Unlike other night creatures, bogeymen do not have individual histories—rather, they are generated when needed in adventure mode.
* [[File:experiment_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|A|4:1}}–{{Tile|Z|2:1}} [[Experiment]]s are a variety of transformations originating from necromancers' experimentation on captured citizens and livestock - they sometimes escape to the wild, and intelligent ones can rejoin civilization. Unlike other night creatures, they are represented by regular alphabet letters. Intelligent experiments are colored red, while failed creations and others are colored green.
* [[File:night_troll_sprite.png|16px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|2:0}} [[Night troll]]s, which abduct certain civilized creatures of the opposite gender, transform them into a spouse, and mate with them.
* [[File:werebeast_sprite.png|20px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:0}} [[Werebeast]]s are former worshipers cursed by their patron deities for profaning their temples, or those to whom they transferred that curse. At the full moon, they will transform into a ravenous monster based off a random creature.

===Undead===
* [[File:animated_dead_example_anim.gif|21px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:0}} [[Undead|Animated dead]] are the walking corpses and corpse parts that arise in [[evil]] regions, or under the thrall of a necromancer or [[mummy]]. Particularly evil regions may also transform living creatures into thralls or husks via their unusual weather. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:ghost_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|7:1}} [[Ghost]]s, the restless spirits of the dead that weren't properly memorialized. Depending on circumstances, they can interact with the living in various ways.
* [[File:infected_ghoul_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} [[Infected ghoul]]s are undead who were infected with contagious ghoulish conditions by necromancers. They flash between their night creature tile and their basic creature tile.
* [[File:intelligent_undead_sprite.png|15px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|3:1}} [[Intelligent undead]] - independent, intelligent corporeal undead that do not fit into other categories. They are raised by necromancers, mummies, and [[demon]]s to help with their plots of conquering the world. They have special powers, such as syndrome attacks, controlling the weather, and repelling other creatures.
* [[File:mummy_preview_sprite.png|14px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|6:1}} [[Mummy|Mummies]] are the dead rulers of civilizations, interred in [[tomb]]s or, occasionally. in [[catacombs]]. They will arise if disturbed and lay curses (of misfortune, so far) on the trespasser.
* [[File:vampire_sprite.png|13px]] / {{Tile|Ñ|4:0}} [[Vampire]]s are undead blood-drinkers (usually spawned by divine wrath, as with werebeasts) that can pass for living humanoids, moving on when suspicion of them grows too much. Occasionally they might start immortality cults instead, and might make a bid to seize power over a whole civilization.

==Planned night creatures==
In addition to the existing night creatures, and plans to expand them, [http://www.bay12games.com/media/df_talk_14_transcript.html Dwarf Fortress Talk #14] describes future plans for other types of night creatures, which are as follows:

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} Stalkers, undead that rise from brutal killings and executions, taking on aspects related to their death.
* {{Tile|Ñ|4:1}} Constructed creatures, like Frankenstein's monster, with mismatched limbs, sutures, and grafted weapons. [[Experiment]]s seem to at least partly be an implementation of this.
* {{Tile|Ñ|7:0}} Animated furniture, to be found in certain haunted houses, making sounds, moving about, and attacking the unwitting souls entering them. They will flash between their night creature tile and their basic item tile.
* {{Tile|Ñ|2:1}} Various sorts of evil beasts, such as evil rotten capybaras or evil animated trees.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:0}} Monsters of the sea, including aquatic hags and trolls such as Grendel, as well as monstrous sea creatures such as evil carp.
* {{Tile|Ñ|1:1}} Cursed people of the sea, such as undead pirates or seafarers.

``generators.lua`` defines a number of tables for generating night creatures, with a number of unused classes. Procedural variants of most undead creatures (rather than a [[syndrome]]) and the planned categories listed above are listed in ``creatures.night_creature``. The names of two new categories were revealed this way.

* {{Tile|Ñ|5:0}} "Sorcerer", potentially using [[magic]].
* {{Tile|Ñ|5:1}} "Royal", potentially holding [[noble]] positions, such as a [[monarch]].

[[File:night_creatures_preview.jpg|thumb|300px|center|When the night comes, they can wait forever.]]
{{Translation| dwarven = anan mes | elvish = lithéme amu | goblin = anu los | human = kulur mos}}
{{Creatures}}
[[ru:Night creature]]

Stupid dwarf trick

2026-05-03T09:28:06Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' (''or, in certain cases, '''dwarven trick''', to dodge accusations of genuine Urist-level stupidity'') is any project that requires a large amount of time and/or effort. They may provide a practical benefit, but are frequently done for the sake of doing them; they exist primarily as a [[challenge]] for experienced players.

==Adventure mode fortress==


Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor; possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol. This means an alarm clock is not impossible if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. Even less if using sprites. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount (and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to medium. If the chamber containing the altar is consecrated as a [[temple]], dwarves will go there to pray, and may gain additional happy thoughts for admiring the altar's materials and craftsdwarfship.

*Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
**MegaSacrificialBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Anthill==
Build your fortresses hallways and rooms on the same Z-axis. Building rooms with depth is fine, as long as their west/east walls are on the same Z-coordinate. All the walls on the Z-coordinate should be glass. Hollow out the opposite section so that the area beside the glass is empty. Build viewing platforms in the hollowed-out space.
'''Difficulty''' High. The limited space is a huge restraint, and caverns are a huge issue.

'''Usefulness''' Very low, although intruders can be forced to climb the viewing area to enter, letting marksdwarves pick them off easily through fortifications.

*MirrorBonus: Instead of a viewing area, build a perfect replica of the fort.
*SuperDwarfGalaxyBonus: Make it horizontal instead of vertical.
**MegaBonus: Build it into the magma sea.

==Aqueduct power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]]. It is now very rare to find a powerful enough aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' High.

==Archaeological excavation==
A Fortress in the caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (e.g. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Variable. Carving a premade fort or building controlled access to caverns can potentially be useful for a Reclaim effort, effectively making the first wave dispoable setup so your would-be archologists to dig up and exploit their new home. The more Fun you leave behind, the harder it will be for your second wave to repurpose the place.

*Bonus: A museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves.
*Bonus: Create a save with your First Tribe fort collapsed/flooded/etc, for other users to explore. Leave them some Fun what-does-this-lever-do problems to solve.
*EncinoDwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice.
*FunBonus: Breach the HFS.
**MegaBonus: Do a cave in to the HFS after fighting it leaving multiple signs of battle in the fortress, to be dug by your modern dwarves.

==Artificial waterfall==
{{main|Waterfall}}
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==Ballista battery==
{{main|Ballista}}
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, add a little magma, and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
** StonksBonus: Rig a way for your bastion to transfer supplies to the outside world without exposing themselves to danger, so they can be somewhat useful to the rest of your fort before their inevitable downfall. Doubles as a way to restock the bastion with fresh supplies and/or bodies, or a way to let the apocalypse in a little at a time if your survivors get too comfortable.
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludge into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when sanitizing the main one and closes and sanitizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Boat==
In intermittently freezing biomes, [[ice]] may be used to create actual floating boats, submarines, or other floating objects/forts; as constructions built on top of ice do not collapse when the ice thaws.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Needs an intermittently freezing biome, construction is limited to frozen periods, and there's a substantial risk of flooding, drowning and being encased in ice.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Forts within boats are protected from invaders while the water is unfrozen, but they're also trapped within the confines of the boat.

Note: You'll probably want to limit your saves to the colder months.

* DwarfBonus: Have the dwarves live on the boat.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make miscreants/nobles walk the plank.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Bury your treasure on shore.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Have a pet [[kea]] for each of your dwarves.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build it on top of an ice tower.

==Bolt splitting operation==

## Note: no longer works due to climbing mechanics ##

One curious property of Dwarven physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the update that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] (or [[Divine metal]] if you don't have it; or [[Steel]] if you have neither) bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Another design resembles a tower where marksdwarves shoot from the top, with the following setup: (click then press '<' and '>' to go through different z-levels)
<diagram>
<frame type="level" level=0>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]<[%204][%185][#5:1]g[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 01
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=1>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]X[%204][%185][#7:1]O[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 02 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=2>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]X+[#3:1]/[#7:0].[%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%205][%188]

< 03 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=3>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187]+
[%186]X[%186].[%186]+
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188]+

< 04 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=4>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187].
[%186]X[%186].[%186].
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188].

< 05 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=5>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]>+[#6:1]@[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%188]

06 >
</frame>
</diagram>
The '@' is any number of marksdwarves standing on a down stair. You may want to use a defend burrow order to restrict them to that tile. The 'g' is a goblin or any other creature your marksdwarves will normally fire at upon encounter (pitted from 2 z-levels above). The 'O' is a well, which is suspected to be preventing dwarves from plunging in and starting brawling with the creature. Marksdwarves will be able to see the goblin or whatever creature below and will loose all bolts in their quivers on them. Curiously, nearly all the bolts will fail to cross the bend in the middle and will fall onto the tile '/' where they can be collected. This disregards crossbow and archery skills and the only difference they make is the speed at which the bolts are split. This design has the advantage of taking less space and being easier to set up, however it is reported that sometimes the dwarves will not miss some of the bolts. If you are only stationing one marksdwarf in the tower, stationing another one may help the first one miss all of his bolts, even after the newly added one is then removed. Sometimes dwarves will spam job cancellation on the bolt collection level, and it is also reported that sometimes some dwarves will start firing when they are on the bolt collection level. In such cases you may want to seal the collection level off and open it once in a while to retrieve the bolts.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite metal|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the dam (release the river!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh maniacally.

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that raises under its victims' feet, flinging enemies away.

Bridges don't fling creatures in any specific direction, apart from "up". So it's more of a spring-board than a catapult. If there's a lot of open space above the bridge, creatures can get flung very high - ten z-levels and more - and take appropriate falling damage. Most of them will land atop the bridge, and bringing the same bridge down will simply crush them.

'''Difficulty:''' Fairly easy. Getting the timing right promises to be the biggest challenge.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

===Cat-a-pult===
Essentially a Bridge-a-pult with specific ammo.

'''Difficulty''': Very easy, given that you have live cats in your fortress.

'''Usefulness''': Can be used as a way to stop a [[catsplosion]] if used with male cats. [[Unfortunate accident|Cats can also be replaced with elite citizens of your fortress.]] 

==Corpse processing facility==
WARNING: The system can freely jam on any body parts, besides hands and heads, without killing undead.
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with an artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something more out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

NOTE: necromancer siege's corpses now drop clothes and gear.

==Crocodile farm==
They're a thing in real life, and you can make them a thing in-game too! Use cage traps to capture multiple breeding pairs of [[alligator]]s, [[cave crocodile]]s or [[saltwater crocodile]]s, [[Animal trainer|train]] them, then create an area to store them with [[nest box]]es. Breed them so you have more crocodilians to keep laying eggs, rinse and repeat.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, somewhat dependent on RNG - you need to find someplace with available crocs, you want said crocs to actually spawn and you want said crocs to actually get caught in the traps. <s>May</s> Will also lead to an explosive and FPS-shattering [[Catsplosion#Crocsplosion|crocsplosion]] sooner or later.

'''Usefulness:''' Very high, you'll never have to worry about food again simply from cooking the eggs, and that's not counting butchering the crocs when they're adults.

*Bonus: Have alligators, cave crocs and saltwater crocs '''all''' present in the farm.
*SwampBonus: Have your croc farm submerged in anywhere between 1/7 to 3/7 [[water]]. You gotta keep your crocs healthy and wet! But make sure not to submerge the nest boxes!
*SavageBonus: Have [[giant alligator]]s or/and [[giant saltwater crocodile]]s as part of your farm.
**Archcrystal bonus: Replace the crocs with [[Hydras]]. Keep them in a usually unseen location, as any Urist McFoolhardy walking by will try to attack them on sight.
*TrainerBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert alligator/cave croc/saltwater croc trainers.
**SteveIrwinBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert trainers of all croc species.
*HungryHungryCrocBonus: Build your farm in such a way that [[siege]]s have to go through it to reach your fortress.
*UltraCrocBonus: Have [[Alligator man|alligator men]] or/and [[Saltwater crocodile man|saltwater crocodile men]] inhabiting your fortress and helping train the croc farm.
**UltraArmokCrocBonus: Have an entire fortress of croc men handling a croc farm. You're dwarves in spirit.

==Dam==
{{main|Dam}}
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.)

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==Danger room==
{{main|Danger room}}
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': Low. While this used to be a very effective training method, it's quite deadly now, even for militiadwarves. They also wear down your dwarves' armor and shields quickly, making them harmful for your long-term survival, even if your militiadwarves manage to survive the room itself.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*UltraDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers, or get into accidents. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to [[quantum stockpile]] a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, toys, clothing, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like hauling, crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in miscellaneous professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (Dorfanage) (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies, depending on the bonuses built. With v50, children are a lot easier to mentally scar for life, making them prone to fell moods and tantrums, so having a safe form of daycare allows them to grow up into adults whose stress levels are usually easier to manage

*SchoolBonus: Make the daycare a guild hall, and add a highly skilled dwarf and another adult to the burrow. The two will give demonstrations that the kids will occasionally watch, gaining experience in a profession of your choice
*OlympicBonus: Build a swimming pool of 4/7 between critical parts of the daycare, so the kids have to go through the water for their everyday tasks, gaining swimming skill and associated stats.
*ChildSoldierBonus: Make the daycare a barracks, and have your crack squad of dwarves spar and demonstrate there to train up the military skills of your dwarven children
*HighSchoolBonus: All of the above, and make [[nobles]] and unskilled migrants stay there to learn.

==Doberman bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus: Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus: Use one (or more!) of the following list: [[dragon]]s, [[bronze colossus]]es, [[forgotten beast]]s (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or [[Hidden Fun Stuff|Clowns of Hidden Funland]].

==Drophole==
Imagine an execution tower, for rocks and pants. It's nothing but a very deep 1x1 up-down staircase for express service to the depths. Designate a garbage dump beside the top and dwarves will pitch anything marked for [[Dumping]] into it.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds, there's always snags along the way. Surprise caverns can cost you miners and tools. Hitting water can be vexing. Dumping and reclaiming things can be a chore. It may serve as an unintended highway for Fun of any liquid or airborne variety

'''Usefulness:''' It's '''far''' easier to drop ore 100 z-levels to the magma sea than carry it. You can use this to transfer items between burrows.

*Bonus: Minecarts can make this semi-automatic, fed from a stockpile.

==Drowning chamber==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==Dwarfputer complex==
{{main|Computing}}
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers (''bugs, perhaps?'') enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven apartment complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to [[Losing|fun]] by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc.) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaOrwellBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*Bonus: Punch a large shaft through a multi-level aquifer (hint: punch through the aquifer from below).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self-sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the [[Demon|clowns]] while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven disco ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven labor camp (aka Dwalag)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium. Only possible if your 3rd cavern layer actually ''has'' nether-caps growing in it.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

Bonus: Also use nether-cap wood to build the walls, floor, ceiling, and door.

Bonus: While we are at it make all your coffins out of it. 'Cryogenically' freeze those corpses!

==Dwarven machine gun==
Build a high fire rate, minecart firing machine gun. Must be fully automatic, capable of reloading itself, and should not jam due to minecarts being disrupted by collisions or derailments.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on fire rate, reload downtime, and whether or not minecarts are filled with [[magma]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. A sophisticated minecart trap can keep out even the most persistent invaders.

*Bonus: Automatically reload minecarts with [[magma]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Integrate the trap with a dwarfputer so that it can automatically send minecarts to where they are needed most.

==Elephant man armor factory==
[[Elephant man]] are incredibly strong in combat — both in [[Dwarf fortress mode|Fortress]] and [[Adventurer mode|Adventurer]] modes. However, they can't put on normal-sized [[Armor]] — and therefore, walk around in crappy starting armor at best, naked at worst. We'll put [[Elephant man]] to make [[Armor]] — and another [[Elephant man]] for [[Clothes]].

'''Difficulty:''' Easy. Depends on amount of [[Elephant man]] spawning in the world.

'''Usefulness:''' Your [[Elephant man]] [[Military|super-soldiers]] are now properly armored. Considering their size, strength, and possibly training, they are now borderline-invulnerable. Also, you have enough armor complects for your [[Elephant man]] [[Adventurer mode|Adventurers]].

==Emergency destruct stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Send prisoners straight to the [[HFS]]. If some mod makes them survive, the [[Clown]]s will have their way with them. May make retrieving items difficult, however.

==Flak==
If flying enemies circumventing your walls and causing mayhem inside your fortress is a problem, don't use marksdwarves, just make some flak! Simply cover a series of drawbridges in rocks, and when fliers come by pull the lever.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Contrary to the description, marksdwarves are more accurate, versatile, and just better. However, if you manage to hit something with this, there's a large chance of it getting stunned and crashing to the ground. Remember, what goes up must come down, wear your helmet Urist!

*Bonus: Use minecarts and pressure plates to make it fully automatic.
*SuperBonus: Make it closer to real world flak by using burning lignite bins.
*EfficiencyBonus: Use goblins as ammo
*AlternateBonus: Instead of drawbridges and stone, use jets of water to stun flyers, and then release the dogs. Alternatively, burn them in midair with lava.
*FunBonus: Use the above method with lava, except use the lava as a propellent to throw the circus at the local crow population.
*ArmokBonus: Use all of the above to emulate what happens when you drift into American airspace.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a fair bit of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. [[Dragonfire]] can kill almost anything, but will be blocked by a [[shield]] greater than 99% of the time. Adding a combustible floor (such as a paved [[lignite]] [[road]]) will significantly increase lethality for shield-toting targets. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications may melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; ensuring the bridge center tile isn't near the fire, or building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[divine metal]] (or [[slade]]) will make them immune to the fire. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer can easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot, if line-of-sight access is available.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the hidden fun stuff and use them.

==Flood the world==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate unless you sink the world below water level (river or ocean).

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==Gladiator arena==
{{main|Live training}}
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages. Keep in mind that you can't actually make your dwarves "watch" the battles like an actual gladiator arena, as civilians will flee in fear at the sight of non-restrained hostile creatures, even if they're in a pit and not actively attacking them.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*DwarfBonus: Winners also get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Grazer reanimation facility==
Just as stables, but without grass, and on a reanimating biome. Pasture every grazer in a separate box, and build [[cage trap]]s to recapture the animal after it joins [[undead|the Dark Side]]. Make sure to forbid the area after you finish setting things up, because you don't want your dwarves getting <s>killed</s> caught instead.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You always get some grazing animals to start with.

'''Usefulness:''' You get a decent supply of zombies to use in your [[trap design|cunning traps]]. Depending on your style of play, this may prove to be worth the effort.

* DwarfBonus: Use war [[elephant]]s, or any other giant {{catlink|Grazer|grazing animal}} you <s>bought</s> seized from elves.
** MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant elephant]]s.
*** BoatMurderedBonus: Release them all simultaneously to challenge your militia/play out a [[fun|!fun!]] scenario for your fort.
* MenagerieBonus: Create a zoo using only undead grazers.
** DwarvenMenagerieBonus: Combine this with the [[#Zombie_thunderdome|Zombie Thunderdome]] and have a rotation of undead cows fighting in the arena only to be re-caged when they try to leave.
*** ChampionBonus: Give each grazer rooming in the zoo according to their kills, with the champion having the most luxurious room.
**** AltarBonus: Turn the champion's room into an [[#Altar_of_Armok|Altar of Armok]].
**** FreedomBonus: Let the champion and higher-ranking zombies roam freely in their rooms, having to be re-captured for each battle.
***** !FreedomBonus!: Release the champion into your fort.
* HolyGrailBonus: Use white [[bunny|bunnies]].

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksdwarfs handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.
*MegaHumanBonusPlus: Designate multiple dumping spots into the lava moat.
*SurfaceDwellerBonus: Get the stone for your constructions entirely from open-pit quarries, i.e. by c[h]annelling instead of [d]igging.
*MegaSurfaceDwellerBonus: Never use picks at all, all stone and metal must come from caravans or embark.
*WhereTheBeardedLadiesAtBonus: Enforce as many <s>pointless</s> quaint human quirks as feasible, for instance: nominating officials per wealth/popularity/relationships instead of merit and suitedness, coddling Nobles, burrowing farmers, miners, brewers, craftsdwarves and other backbones of society into the most tattered ridings, enforcing a specific religion upon the populace, and so forth.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], or [[gold]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

* BabelBonus: Use [[DFHack]]'s <code>infiniteSky</code> and build to the heavens themselves.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' [[Cave-in|Negative]]. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*YouHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Single-lever emergency lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build the same number of bridges (that raise!) as your stairway is tall on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.
*MegaArmokEntombment<s>'''Bait&Switch'''</s>Diplomatic+Bonus: Set the highest level up on another switch, with a particularly <s>'''demanding and annoying noble'''</s> skilled diplomatic representative is waiting at the very bottom to <s>'''lure'''</s> invite them all down for a nice meal on <s>'''his flesh'''</s> the stockpile of food and booze that's keep him ever so happy. Then you can wait for the entire army to flow into the stairwell before flipping the switches. Don't forget to carve a statue out of the block of the noble! What noble doesn't want their grand <s>'''sacrificial defense'''</s> diplomatic skills to be immortalized in volcanic glass?
**UltraArmokBonus: Defeat all your invasions this way, and build a temple to Armok full of the once noble, now obsidian statues, as well as only the highest of quality (and value) memorial slabs.

==Magma Lock System==
This system is a little more complicated than the LEL system described above, and requires that you space out all of your floors so that there's a 'plumbing floor' between each level. From there you set up tons and tons of magma proof floodgates and hatches. Each 'area' you wish to be self-contained from one another needs at least a 3x2 hallway separating it from the other areas. 4 of these will contain flood gates, and the other two must remain bare. Above one of the two bare points you need to have a hollowed out space, and connecting into it from one side you need to have a hatch leading to your water plumbing system, to the other, a hatch to your lava plumbing system. You need two levers for controlling this, one lever is connected to all of the lower floodgates, the other to the upper floodgates. Pull the first hatch to lock in the flood gates just in case, the second to the upper flood gates to begin pouring in water and magma and have them make obsidian filling the entire hallway, sterilizing it of literally anything that could have contaminated it. You do this instead of hatches so they'll drop in properly and mix with no risk of only one side or the other of the hallway turning to obsidian and resulting in a dangerous leak. Throw the first switch again to open up the floodgates and begin mining to access the old chambers again. Whatever was invading your fortress, whether plague, necromancer, clowns, or forgotten beast, will be safely locked away, and unable to break back out whether or not it possesses building destroyer or not. Then you just have to wait for your miners to dig their way out. You can simply avoid the chambers that still have FUN inside, and any the purity of magma and obsidian will have utterly obliterated any traces of contaminants between containment zones.

'''Difficulty''': Medium to High. While not dealing with anything overtly hostile, this process more or less demands that you plan your fortress from the start for this specific system and deal with lots and lots of moving parts, mechanisms, and similar, plus the power necessary to pump magma and water into this network in a timely manner.. If you screw up part of it then it's very easy to end up with your entire fortress flooded with water or magma. Build it on small and give it a test run then expand it once you've gotten the process working for a single chamber, such as the chamber leading to your cavern layer.

'''Usefulness''': High. Depending on how you prepare things (See the bonuses below) the necessary set up for all of this will result in a network of magma and water pipes in every single level of your fortress, powering forges, wells, baths, showers, and defenses of all sorts. Then when things are at their worst, throw a switch and barring one or two (or many depending on how many dwarves are transitioning between containment areas) horribly swift deaths, your entire fortress is safe from any possible threats. You can also prepare chambers ahead of time for other activities and use this to trap enemies in them for later usage.

*DwarfBonus: Put a stockpile of food, drink, and pickaxes in each containment area.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Put a lever in every zone connected just to their own, so your dwarves can heroically seal off an entire section by themselves if necessary.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Extend the hallways, and make the water half of them use grates and constant water falls to give good thoughts while traversing between zones. Change up your levers to shut off the water for when digging begins again.

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Filodorima: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].
*MemorialBonus: Capture the Goblin King and make him fight the Minotaur.

==Magma chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma cannon==
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma access early==
ASAP from embark, dig down to the magma. 
Make 2 magma proof pumps, 
make a small (5x5?) room that you can pump magma into and out of and 
make a stockpile for only iron & steel minecarts in the room. 
Be sure to make enough minecarts to fill the room. 
Once the room is full of minecarts, seal room and pump it full of magma. 
Then pump the magma out. 
Delete the stockpile. 
Make a new stockpile near your forge/smelt/glass/kiln area. 
Haul minecarts by hand (or magma proof wheelbarrow). 
Use tracks and stops to dump 4 deep magma into shallow pits. 
2 minecart loads per pit. 

'''Difficulty:''' Low. 
'''Usefulness:''' Very High. 
*Bonus: !!Magma Economy By Autumn!!
*ObsidianBonus: Instead of pumping the magma out, drain water from a nearby lake or aquifer cistern onto it to turn it into obsidian. Carve out the minecarts, magma safely still inside, and enjoy the extra obsidian you have. Watch out not to flood the fortress!

==Magma highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with exactly the same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma sea colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==<s>Magma</s> Lava sprinkler==
Build a twisting <s>magma</s> lava aqueduct above the entrance to your fortress. Leave a few thin (diagonal) holes in it, so that lava can seep out of it. When invaders arrive, pump magma into the sprinkler. Diagonal holes will limit the rate at which the fluid flows out of them, ensuring a nice steady lava rain rather than a big wave.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Similar to magma canon, except with a bit more engineering, but less pumps and smaller reservoir needed (due to less magma being required for the same effect).

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Like magma cannon it can obliterate a siege, but this time you can have a bit more control over how it happens. Lava rain doesn't depend on ground structure (your entrance doesn't need to be in a valley for it to work well) and leaves less magma to evaporate.

*Bonus: Cover the holes with floodgates or hatches and keep the lavaduct filled with lava rather than filling it only when using it.
*Bonus+1: Build the lavaduct in such a way that it starts raining on the outermost part of the area first, then goes inwards, to ensure that invaders who start burning can't escape.

==Mass cage recycling system==
{{main|Mass pitting}}
Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==Mega/Water drowning trap-thing==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Minecart spiral==
Build a giant spiral [[Minecart#Impulse ramps|minecart impulse ramp]] all the way from the [[magma sea]] to the surface. You can use it to transport ores to the [[magma smelter|magma smelters]] at the bottom from [[sedimentary layer|sedimentary layers]] near the surface. You can build [[statues]] in it to prevent dwarves from walking in and [[fun|dying]].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium-High. You will most likely have to use [[macros]]. Additionally, when crossing caverns you will have to [[construct]] minecart ramps which can be tedious.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. It depends on how tall your map is and how much ores you consume.

*TrapBonus: Use [[bridge|drawbridge]] to guide invaders to the spiral, then [[screw pump|pump]] water into it and drown them.
**BetterTrapBonus: Make it [[magma]] instead.
*SuperBonus: Make the tower go all the way to the highest [[Z-axis|Z level]].
**ArmokBonus: Make it go through the magma sea, and [[HFS|further below]].
*Bonus: At the top, set up a system where dwarves can guide minecarts to different vertical shafts where the will fall to different Z levels, for loading. Then, the minecarts fall further down to the smelters, where the empty minecarts are sent back up for loading.
**MegaBonus: Divide your dwarves into two separate [[burrows]] connected only by the minecart spiral and the shaft. The higher burrow is in charge of mining, growing food, and operating the minecart system, and the lower burrow is in charge of smelting ores and making crafts.
***HyperMegaBonus: Close off all stairs and add a minecart loading and unloading station at every inhabited z level. All vertical transport of goods should be done via minecarts only. Also, dwarves are not allowed in minecarts.
****UltraSuperBonus: Build a minecart loading and unloading station at every Z level, even the uninhabited ones you never use.

==Mist generator==

Using whatever screw-pump-statue contraption your dwarves can muster up, create an endless mist-generating machine which will hopefully not obliterate your [[Frames_per_second|FPS]].

'''Difficulty:''' Extremely easy. You will only need a basic understanding of screwpumps and gear assemblies. However, you can scale it to any size or level of complexity. The [[Mist|mist page]] has a handy guide.

'''Usefulness:''' Borderline cheating. Keeps your dwarves in a state of constant euphoria. Mist does funny things to a dwarf's mind. Also a one-up from artificial waterfalls as they only need to travel a single Z level, (hopefully) reducing the FPS strain.
*Bonus: Build an absolutely horrible fortress with as much [[miasma]] and [[hateable]] vermin that you can fit in one bunker. Keep your dwarves sane with the power of Mist™ alone.
**FUNbonus: Build it in a semi-freezing climate instead. Watch as winter rolls by and your dwarves are deprived of their only source of joy. [[Fun]] will surely ensue.

==Monumental statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*BestWayToGetRidOfStoneBonus: Make one for every dead dwarf.
**UberTombBonus: Use the statue as a tomb and put their coffins in it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

*Bonus: Use the Moses effect to make doors from water, which are opened/closed using a lever.
*TechBonus: Automatize the doors so that they open (only!) when a dwarf is near.

==Never-ending shower==
{{main|Waterfall}}
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==Nuclear Fallout Bunker==
Build a mini fortress with everything your dwarves could need deep underground. Stock it with enough food, drinks, and materials to last your small band of survivors for years or alternatively make it self-sufficient with its own food production. Lastly, add a bridge that allows you to seal off the bunker from the rest of the world.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy-Medium depending on the relative luxury of the bunker and how many dwarves you intend to shelter from the apocalypse.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your fort is threatened by some particularly nasty disaster (be it zombie goblin horde or Bronze Colossus) simply rush your best and brightest dwarves down to the Nuclear Fallout Bunker and raise the bridge, sealing it off from the rest of the world.
*MutallyAssuredDestructionBonus: Have a self-destruct lever in the bunker that is pulled once everyone is safely inside.

==Obsidian factory==
{{main|Obsidian farming}}
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber, a drowning chamber and even an obsidianizing chamber that can kill any creature that gets in (except [[ghost]]s and possibly [[vermin]]).

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

* Bonus: Link the spikes to a lever so you can proceed to make swiss cheese of whatever didn't die from the fall.

==Pixel art stockpiles==
Arrange several stockpiles of similar items of different colors (gems work well for this) so the different colors make some sort of picture. Don't forget to set "max bins" to 0 on all the stockpiles so you can actually see the items!

It's probably also a good idea to forbid the items once they're in place, to prevent them from being moved later (and allow you to remove the stockpiles if you want.)

'''Difficulty:''' Medium; only tricky parts are (potentially) finding enough items of different colors, and keeping track of which colors are where before the hauling is done.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative

==Pressure washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and instantly submerges anything in the way of the flow. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though it won't flow out nearly as quickly).

==Quantum Blizzard Cannon==

Do you need to kill something? Is atom-smashing no longer a viable option? Do you wish to bring glory to Armok? Do not fear, the QBC is here! By creating individual stops to fill minecarts with projectiles of your choosing, then loading up to 12 filled minecarts into a final “Launcher” minecart (using a stop designated to fill the "launcher" with minecarts), you can effectively fire as many items as you would like at your foe using a standard minecart shotgun. It is also possible to fill this with fluids, to great effect (and risk of crashing the game). This can often have interesting effects because hitting a goblin with 996 bars of lead at extreme speeds is not good for the squishy bits. The cannon gains its name from its creator.

''' Difficulty:''' excessive, lots of time in menus and loading per shot, but really ((Fun))

''' Usefulness:''' medium to low. The same trick can be used to move large amounts of items via minecart, but ultimately the QBC is excessive for even the HFS.

==Redesign the fortress==
And when we say "redesign", we mean completely replanning and rebuilding the entire fortress, from scratch. Ever thought about a cool thing that you could add to your fortress, but can't because a critical area(such as the dining room, general-purpose stockpile, central workshop area etc.) are in the way? Did you start the fortress by building the most critical areas in the first available spot? Well, now is a good time to get rid of that! For added effects, put the sleeping areas especially close to the booze stockpile so that dwarves are always happy!

'''Difficulty:''' Varies depending on the size of the fortress.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies depending on how you carry it out, a.k.a. the efficiency of the new organization.

* Bonus: use [[obsidian]] casting to carve the new fortress entirely out of obsidian.
** DwarfBonus: but keep valuable walls such as [[native gold]].
*** PurpleDwarfBonus: using controlled [[cave-in]]s, arrange for your king's new room to be entirely bordered by native gold/platinum/aluminium walls.

==Rehabilitation centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!
* Megabonus: Spike traders who annoy you on the traps!

==Roof of the world==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Sectorized world==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained vampire-based factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Sapient zoo==
Start by creating a [[zoo]] containing at least one of every [INTELLIGENT] and [CAN_SPEAK] creature
including [[humans]], [[elves]], [[goblin]]s and [[kobold]]s.

*Bonus: include a berserk dwarf in cage

'''Difficulty:''' Easy for some, Hard for others

'''Usefulness:''' None, really, a place for dwarves to throw a [[party]].

==Self-destruct lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self-destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.
* FunBonus: use the lever to drop the fortress off a pillar while simultaneously opening the [[hidden fun stuff]], preferably in a whole lot of places.
*ExtraFunBonus: do as many of these bonuses as you please (as long as they still function together) AND unleash a whole lot of dwarves throwing tantrums near the lever when you wish to set the fun things off.

==Shark catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==Silk farming==
{{main|Silk farming}}
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==Steamed vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].
*DwarfBonus: feed any vegetables you did not steam to your dear friends, the [[Demon|clowns]].

==Swimming pool==
{{main|Swimming#Learning/Teaching swimming|l1=Swimming § Learning/Teaching swimming}}
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Swimming track==
{{main|Swimming#Minecart_training|l1=Swimming § Minecart_training}}

[[Image:Swim track 0.png|thumb|right|250px|A large swimming track]]

A [[minecart]] ride that trains [[swimming]] safely and automatically.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Minecart tracks can be fiddly, and adding a non-traversable depth of water makes any mistakes more difficult to fix.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. The swimming skill is only slightly useful, but it does provide [[cross-training]] for attribute gains.

==Tower of Death-Struction==

Have you ever wondered, "What would it take to make my [[Siege|friends]] all [[Gravity|fall]] at once into a pit of [[Trap|fun times]] while also not risking failure?" Elementary, my aspiring architect -- [[Fun|THE TOWER OF DEATH-STRUCTION]]!

Step 1: Build a tower with a [[bridge]], to allow for non-lethal access to the fortress. Build the tower roughly 25-30 blocks high, though higher towers tend to result in roughly equivalent amounts of [[Fun]]. The access bridge should be linked to a lever, to close it like a standard gate.

Step 2: Build a thinner tower 20 blocks away, for maximum bridge length. Any number of middle towers can be constructed, though one is recommended.

Step 3: Build another tower, one that can be ascended by [[Goblin|curious friends]]. Fill it with cage traps, to thin out the number of [[Troll|friends]] to take up space on the bridge.

Step 4: Build two bridges on either side of the skybridge, to trap attackers on the skybridge.

Step 5: Hook up the skybridges to one lever, and the trap bridge to another.

Once this is done, just wait for a [[Siege|surprise party]] to be thrown for you. Close the access bridge, forcing the [[Goblin|visitors]] to path onto it. Trap them, and when the time looks right...

'''Pull the lever, Kronk!'''

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to hard. If all of your dwarves have cave adaptation, the construction might take a lot longer to complete. As well, the cost of floors and traps alone will mean that just acquiring the materials will need its own stupid dwarf trick.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to high, depending on how well you use it. If you forget to open the access gate, you might find your dwarves trapped inside the tower, or even worse, they may run up to the bridge to fight and meet a [[Gravity|bad time]]. Also, the goblin corpses piling up in the spike pit might cause extra [[Miasma|fun]] depending on how regularly you take care of it. If done correctly, this tower might become the most efficient and effective defence against all problems that one could possibly ask for.

*Bonus: Build enough middle towers to build a bridge path long enough to trap an entire siege and drop them onto spikes below.
*SuperBonus: Build the towers above a river.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a lava pit.
*SuperMegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a ticket straight to [[HFS|the circus]].
*ArmokBonus: Build the towers out of [[Slade]] (Note: This should be impossible, so if you do it...))
*HardcoreDwarvenMasterpieceArtifactBonus: Build the fortress at the top of the tower that the goblins have to try to get to.

== Traveling Circus ==
Travel across the world, building megaprojects like pyramids or bridges.

'''Difficulty''': The larger the world, the higher.

'''Usefulness''': ''None at all''.
* Bonus: travel around and actually release [[HFS|the circus]] on every embark. Needless to say, this is the most [[fun]] option. You may consider making sure the clowns get their share of fun, if you want your circus to happen more than once...

==Underground forest==
{{main|Tree farming}}
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground perpetual motion power plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors then fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. artificial intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in, or it will become very [[fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

Bonus: Make an ACTUAL Vomitorium for this - Build a [[meeting hall]] with a [[grate]]d floor. Let [[cave adaptation]] set in, then open the place up for the most extravagant and lavish of parties every 3~4 years! Those will be some Armok grade hangovers though....

==Water tower==
This functions much like real life: Lifting water above ground level creates pressure, allowing buried pipes to deliver water to any elevation below the top of the tower. This is smarter, faster, and cheaper than a map-spanning raised aqueduct. A pump stack at the river, raising water into a sealed, pressurized U-bend, can deliver large volumes of water to whatever level you want, very quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. No harder than any other pump stack to design, but high pressure can amplify minor errors into abandon-worthy disasters. You could conceivably divert the river into your fort. Be sure to make an off-switch.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Once the pump stack is operating, you no longer need to be anywhere near your water source.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Werewolf clock==
The changing of the werewolf is the most reliable indicator of the passing of seasons. For precisely one day per full moon, he will go berserk and trigger standard pressure plates.

'''Difficulty:''' You will get a were sooner or later. Getting him pitted in the right spot without havoc is the hard part.

'''Usefulness:''' Low/None. As of Premium, the lunar phase is permanently affixed to the user interface, making a werewolf clock frankly redundant.

*Bonus: Make the werewolf do most of the work himself.

==Zombie thunderdome==
Embark in a [[surroundings#Evil|reanimating]] biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
*CavernFunBonus: Channel the bottom into a cavern and let your zombies hunt [[forgotten beast|the wonderful creatures there]].
**BonusFunBonus: Let them hunt [[Demon|Clowns]] as well.
*ZombieDwarfBonus: Ignore the suggestion above and dump dwarven corpses in anyway.

==Zombie shooting gallery==

In a reanimating biome, build a holding room for your undead, wall it off with fortifications. In the adjacent (accessible) area, build an archery range and order your archery squads to train there. Your marksdwarves will go to their scheduled archery training and whenever a zombie is raised, they'll switch focus from the boring old archery target and instead shoot down the undead. Once the zombies are dead, they'll return to regular shooting practice until the corpses rise again. The raised corpses cannot attack through fortifications and thus cause no unhappy thoughts from seeing them, but will spook haulers trying to collect errant socks from the shooting range.

A viable (if finicky) alternative to a reanimating biome could be a [[necromancer]]. This has the benefit of being more controllable, but comes with the threat of [[intelligent undead]] and their abilities. Most would be relatively harmless or a minor inconvenience, but some are potentially lethal to your dwarves. Whether or not this is a downside depends on how many corpses you have available to restock the gallery.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. The difficulty lies in finding a source of permanent undead, the actual construction is trivial.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. This setup significantly increases the skill gain from bolts used by training dwarves, since every bolt shot at a zombie counts as combat action, giving much more experience. The scheme works without any supervision once set up.

{{Category|Design}}
[[ru:Stupid dwarf trick]]

Bronze colossus

2026-05-03T09:13:42Z

Silverwing235: /* Adventure Mode */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|image=bronze_colossus_sprite.png
|portrait=bronze_colossus_portrait.png
|death=item
|item=☼[[bronze]] [[statue]]☼ (worth 280☼)
|contrib=no
|wiki=Colossus
}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

[[Image:Bronze_Colossus.png|frame|Estimated size comparison between a bronze colossus, and a dwarf.]]

A '''bronze colossus''' (plural: '''bronze colossuses''' from the raws) is a [[megabeast]] taking the form of a gigantic humanoid construct, made of [[bronze]]. When one takes up residence near a fortress, it's up to those within to make an end of it, or it will make an end of them. Upon its death by means other than melting, a bronze colossus becomes a [[item value|masterwork]] bronze [[statue]] of itself (worth 280☼), a decent decoration for a grand entrance hall.

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64341.msg1501902#msg1501902 Rough calculations] have placed the colossus somewhere between thirty-five and forty feet tall (11.53 meters), or about 1/4th the height of the Statue of Liberty. This, of course, assumes it is sculpted in the form of a nude male – a clothed or female figure might be shorter or taller.

Some dwarves [[Preferences|like]] bronze colossuses for their ''height''.

==Fortress Mode==
Unless you are using [[whip]]s or [[Crossbowman|marksdwarves]] (but you will need a '''lot''' of [[bolt]]s to kill a bronze colossus), a bronze colossus takes no serious damage from any material inferior to [[steel]] {{verify}}, but can still be defeated with cumulative damage. Attacks that cause cumulative damage will be reported as ''chipping'' or ''denting'' the colossus in the combat log [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59642.msg1362817#msg1362817]. [[Adamantine]] [[short sword]]s and [[battle axe]]s can also lop off entire limbs and heads if you have access to them.

Similarly to other construct-like creatures such as the [[amethyst man]] and the [[gabbro man]], bronze colossuses feel no emotion or [[No Exert|exertion]], are [[No Pain|immune to pain]], and [[No Stun|cannot be stunned]] or nauseated. Like other large creatures, a bronze colossus cannot be [[Dwarven atom smasher|atom smashed]]. Raising and retractable [[bridge]]s do not operate while underneath a colossus either. However, the great weight of a colossus can be exploited by sending it into a multi-floor fall with a controlled [[cave-in]]. While the colossus may not die from the fall, it will likely lose all its limbs and any combat effectiveness, which turns it into a [[Live training|great training dummy]].

[[Magma]], the solution to all dwarven problems, is also effective against a bronze colossus. It may take an extremely long time to melt one unless large amounts of magma are used, however. A tamed [[dragon]] can also be quite effective, since a colossus can be melted with [[dragonfire]], which is also much faster than small amounts of magma. Freezing in [[water]], solidifying in [[obsidian]], and cave-ins are also effective tactics.

On the other hand, why kill a 165-tonne colossus when you can trap it in a wooden [[cage]] and use it as a centerpiece for a [[zoo]]? Or, since a colossus takes no damage from [[wood]] and [[bone]] bolts, with a little engineering and lots of ammo it can become an easy source of limitless marksdwarf experience.

==Adventure Mode==
Bronze colossuses inhabit [[shrine (megabeast)|shrine]]s - you may find the location of a nearby shrine by asking locals about "beasts".

Even a relatively weak and unskilled adventurer can easily cripple a bronze colossus with a [[whip]]. Other weapons with small contact areas retain some effectiveness too, and cumulative damage will eventually bring down a colossus. Stronger and more skillful adventurers can opt for swords and axes, as they can occasionally lop off limbs and heads. Since bronze colossuses are incapable of learning and have no skills, they have a hard time detecting adventurers that are hidden in ambush, even in close proximity. One can take advantage of this by attacking the colossus' feet and legs early in the battle from hiding, as this will bring it to the ground, greatly lowering its speed and preventing it from charging you. Bronze colossuses also have a unique weakness to water, due to having {{token|SWIMS_LEARNED|c}} but ''not'' {{token|CAN_LEARN|c}} - a bronze colossus will not drown in water, but will flounder around helplessly, making it an easy target for adventurers with a good swimming skill (or if the adventurer stands on a land tile next to the water tile the colossus is in).

Even with just a [[copper]] [[spear]], most adventurers can apply their vulnerability to cumulative damage if they have [[vampire|some method]] of increasing their strength beyond the norm. This is effectively the only instance where attacks with the shaft will prove more effective than stabbing.

Great tip for early adventurers: throwing a gold coin can prove to be effective, you can easily grab one from the stockpile where the colossus has hoarded its loot.

[[File:Utost-sarasti.jpg|thumb|center|400px|Artist rendering of a bronze colossus by Mechlin ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169691.msg7701761#msg7701761 post])]]

== Statue ==
{{D for Dwarf}}
A bronze colossus leaves a masterwork bronze statue of itself after death, but said statue weighs only 495Γ, a tiny fraction of the 165,000Γ the colossus weighed in life. Because of these factors, it is theorized that fighting a colossus entails slowly carving it into a puny dwarf-sized version of itself with whatever tools are available, at which point it ashamedly admits defeat and agrees to stand immobile forever as a decoration in your fortress.

Veteran [[Soldier#Heroes|hammer lords]] and [[Engraver|chisel lords]] boast of laying low a bronze colossus and returning with a trophy depicting a wholly different species. [[Release information/53.09#General updates|Contemporary]] adventurers dismiss these tales as fabrications by the [[blacksmith]]'s [[guild]] to fetch a higher price at the [[trade depot]].

==Trivia==
*In previous versions of the game, bronze colossuses were nigh-invincible in combat, save via decapitation. Only one such feat has been [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=56935.0 documented] in an epic battle. Because the bronze colossus is a creature with the current highest {{token|DIFFICULTY}} in the game of 15 points, it does (according to the game) surpass [[demon|Hidden Fun Stuff]] in terms of challenge, and also causes them not to be assigned for quests.
*The plural "colossuses" was reported as a bug{{bug|1953|cat=nocat}}, but it was deemed an acceptable alternate and remains the official term. "Colossi" is however also widely used, not that you'd be likely to ever encounter several of them, if any.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Creatures}}
{{Category|Megabeasts}}

Attribute

2026-05-02T10:42:16Z

Silverwing235: clear out lingering dwarf/creature references as appropriate

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}

[[File:attributes_v50_preview.png|thumb|262px|right|Attributes of a stoneworker.]]A creature has numerous '''attributes''' which affect its performance at various tasks, split into physical factors associated with the body, and mental factors associated with the [[soul]].

Body Attributes can be viewed in the creature's Health -> Description screen. Soul Attributes can be viewed in the creature's Personality -> Traits screen. Positive attributes are shown in green, negative attributes are shown in red, and average attributes are omitted. Said attributes may be listed as follows (may have to be highlighted to be seen): 
{{DFtext|He is slow to tire and agile, |2:0}}{{DFtext|but he is quite susceptible to disease.|4:0}}

On the Overview screen, a creature's top six most varied attributes and [[personality_trait|personality traits]] are summarized in order of how much they differ from the average dwarf. The adjectives used are more generalized than those used in the Traits screen, and are limited to two per trait (Creative and Not creative, Strong and Weak, etc.). For example, "a boundless creative imagination" is merely listed as "Creative", while "unfathomably weak" is just listed as "Weak". Since some of the adjectives used in the Overview summary overlap with some used in the Traits screen, this can be somewhat misleading. However, average and one tier above/below average traits will never be listed in the Overview screen, so only a "very weak" or below dwarf will be listed as "Weak" in the overview.

Attributes are associated with skills, so that shield use will raise endurance as an attribute, but not attributes like memory. Different attributes raised by one skill may not be raised by the same amount. Attribute and skill gain and rust rates are [[creature token]]s that are moddable in raws as such.

== Descriptions ==
In-game attribute descriptions are calculated based on the difference from the [[creature|species]] average. [[Human]]s' median attribute values are always 1000 - thus, if the median [[dwarf]] has higher than 1000 for an attribute, that means the median dwarf is better than the median human for that attribute (however, individual humans may be better than individual dwarves, due to intraspecies variation). Likewise, if the median dwarf has below 1000 for an attribute, then the median human bests the median dwarf in that contest.

The tiers at which descriptions change are 250, 500, 750, and 1000 above or below the species median. Interestingly, if a species has an attribute with a median below 1000, such as dwarves' agility, the lowest tier will never be displayed.

These descriptions are not used in [[adventurer mode]].

== Body attributes ==
The attribute values given in the tables correspond to default racial averages for dwarves only. Modded dwarves or any other creature will report the same phrases, but the underlying numbers may be very different, as they are calculated based on the species average. In almost every case, a higher attribute value is better, as opposed to [[personality trait]]s where one may prefer higher or lower depending on the situation.

=== Strength ===
Alters the damage done in melee (increases velocity of weapon swings), increases muscle mass (a thicker muscle layer also resists damage more, and larger size makes one stronger in general), and increases how much a creature can carry. Higher strength also increases the speed of fast [[gait]]s in most creatures, including running, soaring, galloping, and fast swimming, however, proportionate gains in muscle mass can eventually reduce speed enough to overtake the gains (more so with larger creatures than dwarves). The dwarven median of 1250 is higher than average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || unbelievably strong
|-
| 2000–2249 || mighty
|-
| 1750–1999 || very strong
|-
| 1500–1749 || strong
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || weak
|-
| 501–750 || very weak
|-
| 251–500 || unquestionably weak
|-
| 0–250 || unfathomably weak
|}

===Agility===
This attribute affects the speed of a creature's fast-moving [[gait]]s in the same way as strength — a creature with maximum agility and strength can run faster than a creature with minimum agility and strength. The median dwarf agility of 900 is slightly below average.

Because dwarves in general have below-average agility, and because the descriptions are based on the difference from the racial average, no dwarves will ever display as "abysmally clumsy". Dwarves with an Agility of 0 or less will still move, just more and more slowly.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 1900–5000 || amazingly agile
|-
| 1650–1899 || extremely agile
|-
| 1400–1649 || very agile
|-
| 1150–1399 || agile
|-
| 651–1149 || (no description)
|-
| 401–650 || clumsy
|-
| 151–400 || quite clumsy
|-
| 0–150 || totally clumsy
|-
| (never displayed) || abysmally clumsy
|}

===Toughness===
Increases time required to suffocate. The dwarf median of 1250 is higher than average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || basically unbreakable
|-
| 2000–2249 || incredibly tough
|-
| 1750–1999 || quite durable
|-
| 1500–1749 || tough
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || flimsy
|-
| 501–750 || very flimsy
|-
| 251–500 || remarkably flimsy
|-
| 0–250 || shockingly fragile
|}

===Endurance===
Reduces the rate at which creatures become exhausted, increases the rate of tiredness recovery, increases time required to suffocate, and, if both this and WILLPOWER are effectively above 1750, prevents falling over from exhaustion. The dwarven median endurance of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || absolutely inexhaustible
|-
| 1750–1999 || indefatigable
|-
| 1500–1749 || very slow to tire
|-
| 1250–1499 || slow to tire
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || quick to tire
|-
| 251–500 || very quick to tire
|-
| 1–250 || extremely quick to tire
|-
| 0 || truly quick to tire
|}

===Recuperation===
Increases the rate of wound healing and the speed at which fat is lost. The dwarven median recuperation of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || possessed of amazing recuperative powers
|-
| 1750–1999 || incredibly quick to heal
|-
| 1500–1749 || quite quick to heal
|-
| 1250–1499 || quick to heal
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || slow to heal
|-
| 251–500 || very slow to heal
|-
| 1–250 || really slow to heal
|-
| 0 || shockingly slow to heal
|}

===Disease resistance===
Reduces the effects of resistable syndromes, increases the speed at which one gains a resistance to resistable syndromes, and reduces the chance of wounds being infected. The dwarven median disease resistance of 1000 is exactly the human average. Having a disease resistance of 5000 does not grant immunities.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || virtually never sick
|-
| 1750–1999 || almost never sick
|-
| 1500–1749 || very rarely sick
|-
| 1250–1499 || rarely sick
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || susceptible to disease
|-
| 251–500 || quite susceptible to disease
|-
| 1–250 || really susceptible to disease
|-
| 0 || stunningly susceptible to disease
|}

== Skills by body attribute ==
{{SkillsByBodyAttribute}}

==Soul attributes==
The attribute values given in the tables correspond to default racial averages for dwarves only. Modded dwarves or any other creature will report the same phrases, but the underlying numbers may be very different. In almost every case, a higher attribute value is better, as opposed to [[personality trait]]s where one may prefer higher or lower depending on the situation.

From [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60554.msg1413312#msg1413312 this post by Toady One]:
<blockquote>
With respect to skills: most of these attributes only affect duration, when that is the only available skill effect to begin with, but they are factored into outcomes when it applies.
</blockquote>

At the [[#Skills By Soul Attribute|bottom]] is a list of which attributes affect which skills. [[:Image:DFmental.PNG|This]] pair of charts provides an easier-to-read summary of the soul attributes that are useful for doctors and soldiers.

===Analytical ability===
The dwarven median analytical ability of 1250 is slightly above average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || awesome intellectual powers
|-
| 2000–2249 || great analytical abilities
|-
| 1750–1999 || a sharp intellect
|-
| 1500–1749 || a good intellect
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || poor analytical abilities
|-
| 501–750 || very bad analytical abilities
|-
| 251–500 || a lousy intellect
|-
| 0–250 || a stunning lack of analytical ability
|}

===Focus===
The dwarven median focus of 1500 is above average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description

|-
| 2500–5000 || unbreakable focus
|-
| 2250–2499 || a great ability to focus
|-
| 2000–2249 || very good focus
|-
| 1750–1999 || the ability to focus
|-
| 1251–1749 || (no description)
|-
| 1001–1250 || poor focus
|-
| 751–1000 || quite poor focus
|-
| 501–750 || really poor focus
|-
| 0–500 || the absolute inability to focus
|}

===Willpower===
If both this and ENDURANCE are effectively above 1750, prevents falling over from exhaustion. The dwarven median willpower of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || an unbreakable will
|-
| 1750–1999 || an iron will
|-
| 1500–1749 || a lot of willpower
|-
| 1250–1499 || willpower
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || little willpower
|-
| 251–500 || a large deficit of willpower
|-
| 1–250 || next to no willpower
|-
| 0 || absolutely no willpower
|}

===Creativity===
The dwarven median creativity of 1250 is slightly above the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || a boundless creative imagination
|-
| 2000–2249 || great creativity
|-
| 1750–1999 || very good creativity
|-
| 1500–1749 || good creativity
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || meager creativity
|-
| 501–750 || poor creativity
|-
| 251–500 || lousy creativity
|-
| 0–250 || next to no creative talent
|}

===Intuition===
The dwarven median intuition of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || uncanny intuition
|-
| 1750–1999 || great intuition
|-
| 1500–1749 || very good intuition
|-
| 1250–1499 || good intuition
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || bad intuition
|-
| 251–500 || very bad intuition
|-
| 1–250 || lousy intuition
|-
| 0 || horrible intuition
|}

===Patience===
Some non-skill tasks are affected by Patience; for example, it directly impacts the rate at which a character in [[adventure mode]] will become impatient during a conversation, and thusly determines the length of the discussion.
The dwarven median patience of 1250 is slightly above the human average.
{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || absolutely boundless patience
|-
| 2000–2249 || a deep well of patience
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great deal of patience
|-
| 1500–1749 || a sum of patience
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || a shortage of patience
|-
| 501–750 || little patience
|-
| 251–500 || very little patience
|-
| 0–250 || no patience at all
|}

===Memory===
The dwarven median memory of 1250 is slightly above the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2250–5000 || an astonishing memory
|-
| 2000–2249 || an amazing memory
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great memory
|-
| 1500–1749 || a good memory
|-
| 1001–1499 || (no description)
|-
| 751–1000 || an iffy memory
|-
| 501–750 || a poor memory
|-
| 251–500 || a really bad memory
|-
| 0–250 || little memory to speak of
|}

===Linguistic ability===
The dwarven median linguistic ability of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || an astonishing ability with languages and words
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great affinity for language
|-
| 1500–1749 || a natural inclination toward language
|-
| 1250–1499 || a way with words
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || a little difficulty with words
|-
| 251–500 || little linguistic ability
|-
| 1–250 || very little linguistic ability
|-
| 0 || difficulty with words and language
|}

===Spatial sense===
The dwarven median spatial sense of 1500 is above the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2500–5000 || a stunning feel for spatial relationships
|-
| 2250–2499 || an amazing spatial sense
|-
| 2000–2249 || a great feel for the surrounding space
|-
| 1750–1999 || a good spatial sense
|-
| 1251–1749 || (no description)
|-
| 1001–1250 || a questionable spatial sense
|-
| 751–1000 || poor spatial senses
|-
| 501–750 || an atrocious spatial sense
|-
| 0–500 || no sense for spatial relationships
|}

===Musicality===
The dwarven median musicality of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || an astonishing knack for music
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great musical sense
|-
| 1500–1749 || a natural ability with music
|-
| 1250–1499 || a feel for music
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || an iffy sense for music
|-
| 251–500 || little natural inclination toward music
|-
| 1–250 || next to no natural musical ability
|-
| 0 || absolutely no feel for music at all
|}

===Kinesthetic sense===
No special effect, but it should be noted that it's the most important skill-governing mental attribute for combat. The dwarven median kinesthetic sense of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || an astounding feel for the position of [his/her] own body
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great kinesthetic sense
|-
| 1500–1749 || a very good sense of the position of [his/her] own body
|-
| 1250–1499 || a good kinesthetic sense
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || a meager kinesthetic sense
|-
| 251–500 || a poor kinesthetic sense
|-
| 1–250 || a very clumsy kinesthetic sense
|-
| 0 || an unbelievably atrocious sense of the position of [his/her] own body
|}

===Empathy===
The dwarven median empathy of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || an absolutely remarkable sense of others' emotions
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great sense of empathy
|-
| 1500–1749 || a very good sense of empathy
|-
| 1250–1499 || an ability to read emotions fairly well
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || poor empathy
|-
| 251–500 || a very bad sense of empathy
|-
| 1–250 || next to no empathy
|-
| 0 || the utter inability to judge others' emotions
|}

===Social awareness===
Along with the leadership skill, determines the max follower count in adventure mode. The dwarven median social awareness of 1000 is exactly the human average.

{| class=wikitable style="width:400px;"
! Value
! Description
|-
| 2000–5000 || a shockingly profound feel for social relationships
|-
| 1750–1999 || a great feel for social relationships
|-
| 1500–1749 || a very good feel for social relationships
|-
| 1250–1499 || a good feel for social relationships
|-
| 751–1249 || (no description)
|-
| 501–750 || a meager ability with social relationships
|-
| 251–500 || a poor ability to manage or understand social relationships
|-
| 1–250 || a lack of understanding of social relationships
|-
| 0 || an absolute inability to understand social relationships
|}

== Skills by soul attribute ==
{{SkillsBySoulAttribute}}

== Skills by associated attributes ==
Skills have both Primary attributes (labeled "A") and Secondary attributes (labeled "B" and "C"). Primary attributes give a bonus for every 100 points, while secondary attributes give a bonus for every 250 points. Dwarven ranges and averages vary; see descriptions above.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" style="border-spacing: 0; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
!rowspan="144"|
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Miner]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Wood cutter]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Carpenter]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Engraver]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Mason]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Animal trainer]] || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Animal caretaker]] || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} ||
|-
| [[Fish dissector]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Animal dissector]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Fish cleaner]] || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Butcher]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Trapper]] || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Tanner]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Weaver]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Brewer]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Clothier]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Miller]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Thresher]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Cheese maker]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Milker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Cook]] || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Planter]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Herbalist]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Fisherdwarf]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Furnace operator]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Strand extractor]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Weaponsmith]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Armorsmith]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Blacksmith]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Gem cutter]] || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Gem setter]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Wood crafter]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Stone crafter]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Metal crafter]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Glassmaker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Leatherworker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Bone carver]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Axeman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Swordsman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Knife user]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Maceman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Hammerman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Spearman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Crossbowman]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Shield user]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Armor user]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Siege engineer]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || ||
|-
| [[Siege operator]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Bowyer]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Pikeman]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Lasher]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Bowman]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Blowgunner]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-
| [[Thrower]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Mechanic]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || ||
|-
| [[Druid]] || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Ambusher]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-
| [[Wound dresser]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Diagnostician]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || ||
|-
| [[Surgeon]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Bone doctor]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Suturer]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Crutch-walker]] || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Wood burner]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Lye maker]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Soaper]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Potash maker]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Dyer]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Pump operator]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Swimmer]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Persuader]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Negotiator]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Judge of intent]] || || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Appraiser]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Organizer]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Record keeper]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Liar]] || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Intimidator]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Conversationalist]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Comedian]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|C}} || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Flatterer]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Consoler]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Pacifier]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Tracker]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Student]] || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || ||
|-
| [[Concentration]] || || || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Discipline]] || || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || ||
|-
| [[Observer]] || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|A}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Wordsmith]] || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|A}} || || || || ||
|-
| [[Writer]] || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|A}} || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Poet]] || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|A}} || || || || ||
|-
| [[Reader]] || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Speaker]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Coordination]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Balance]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Leader]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Teacher]] || || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}}
|-
| [[Fighter]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Archer]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-
| [[Wrestler]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Biter]] || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Striker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Kicker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Dodger]] || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Misc. object user]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Knapper]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Tactician]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || ||
|-
| [[Shearer]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Spinner]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Potter]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Glazer]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Presser]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Beekeeper]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || ||
|-
| [[Wax worker]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Climber]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Gelder]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Dancer]] || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || ||
|-
| [[Musician]] || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Singer]] || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|-
| [[Keyboardist]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|- style="background:#e5e5e5;text-align:left;vertical-align:bottom;"
! style="text-align:center;" | Skill
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Strength|Strength]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Agility|Agility]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Toughness|Toughness]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Endurance|Endurance]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Analytical_Ability|Analytical Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Focus|Focus]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Willpower|Willpower]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Creativity|Creativity]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Intuition|Intuition]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Patience|Patience]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Memory|Memory]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Linguistic_Ability|Linguistic Ability]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Spatial_Sense|Spatial Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Musicality|Musicality]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Kinesthetic_Sense|Kinesthetic Sense]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Empathy|Empathy]]}}
{{Rotated-heading|[[#Social_Awareness|Social Awareness]]}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Stringed instrumentalist]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|-
| [[Wind instrumentalist]] || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Percussionist]] || {{X|C}} || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || ||
|-
| [[Critical thinker]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Logician]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || ||
|-
| [[Mathematician]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Astronomer]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|B}} || || || ||
|-
| [[Chemist]] || || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Geographer]] || || || || || {{X|B}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || {{X|A}} || || || ||
|-
| [[Optics engineer]] || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Fluid engineer]] || || || || || {{X|B}} || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || || ||
|-
| [[Papermaker]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Bookbinder]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || || {{X|B}} || ||
|-
| [[Schemer]] || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || {{X|A}}
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Rider]] || || {{X|A}} || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || || || || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} ||
|-
| [[Stonecutter]] || {{X|A}} || {{X|B}} || || || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|-style="background:#f5f5f5;"
| [[Stone carver]] || {{X|B}} || {{X|A}} || || || || || || {{X|C}} || || || || || {{X|B}} || || {{X|A}} || ||
|}

Notes:
*Spatial Sense and Kinesthetic Sense are almost everywhere
*Nothing trains Disease Resistance or Recuperation
*Intimidator and Comedian, both social skills, raise Agility. Dwarven comedy is slapstick/clowning, not stand-up.
*Student skill doesn't boost skill gain except for teacher-student relations in a barracks
*Choose high-volume labors that train useful attributes for militia day-jobs/bootcamp
*Fishing, Siege Operating, and Record Keeping are useful for marksdwarves as they train the Focus attribute
*Hunting (ambusher/sneak) has identical attribute gain to Crossbow and Archer skills

== Dwarf attributes ==

Each attribute is a number between 0 and 5000, but in dwarven terms anything below 200 is rare [http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=5882] and anything above 2500 is extraordinary. In the default raws (/raw/objects/creature_standard.txt), dwarven attributes come in four levels.

Focus and Spatial Sense are referred to as "++", or two steps above default. Their range is defined as [700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500], which sets out six ranges: 700-1200, 1200-1400, etc. Dwarves have an equal chance of dropping into any of these ranges, and an equal probability again of getting any number in that range. So the bottom one-sixth of your dwarves will be really low, the top one-sixth really high, and the two-thirds in the middle huddled around average. This also means that the median and the mean are slightly different: the mean for ++ is 1516.66... while median is 1500.

Strength, Toughness, Analytical Ability, Creativity, Patience, and Memory are +, or one step above default. Their ranges are [450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250], and their mean is 1266.66...

Endurance, Disease Resistance, Recuperation, Intuition, Willpower, Kinesthetic Sense, Linguistic Ability, Musicality, Empathy, and Social Awareness are AVG, or the default. Their ranges are not specified in the raws, but they are [200:700:900:1000:1100:1300:2000] for Physical and [200:800:900:1000:1100:1300:2000] for Mental.

Agility is "-", the only attribute to be below default. Its ranges are [150:600:800:900:1000:1100:1500], mean 870.83..., median 900.

== Training attributes ==

It would seem that various skills train various attributes at different rates. For physical attributes and Willpower, military training works best - it relatively quickly gives a dwarf some extra Agility and Strength, making them walk and work faster in all areas (According to [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121573.msg3944723#msg3944723] speed is a factor in determining how fast a labor is completed).

Plant gathering trains Agility, Kinesthetic Sense, and Memory to a lesser degree. After a couple of years, plant gatherers become the faster dwarves in the fortress and are generally suitable for transfer to any demanding job.

All attribute values are capped based on their initial value, the attribute's {{token|MENT_ATT_CAP_PERC}} or {{token|PHYS_ATT_CAP_PERC}} value (which defaults to 200), and the attribute's ''median'' value (i.e. the middle value in {{token|PHYS_ATT_RANGE}} or {{token|MENT_ATT_RANGE}}) - the exact cap is either ``(starting_value * ATT_CAP_PERC) / 100`` or ``starting_value + ATT_RANGE.MEDIAN``, whichever is higher.

The speed of learning attributes is governed by "cost to improve" in {{token|PHYS_ATT_RATES}} and {{token|MENT_ATT_RATES}}. By default CTI for attributes is 500, which means the counter for using that attribute has to be incremented 500 times for the dwarf to gain 1 in that attribute. The lower the CTI, the faster an attribute increases. According to [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=66525.msg3993120#msg3993120] the counter is incremented every ten ticks a skill using that attribute is in use. This means it takes 5000 TUs or just over 4 in-game days of continuous labor to improve an attribute by 1. The improved attribute gain from military training may stem from the fact that sparring and individual combat drills train multiple skills at the same time.

''Note:'' For trading and appraising caravan goods the attribute gain is calculated differently (as in both cases incrementing the counter every ten ticks makes no sense). For appraising caravan goods the total worth of goods matters. For trading each single transaction increases the counter for the attributes (involved) in haggling (possibly by different amounts).

==Standard ranges==

The game comes pre-stocked with several sets of attribute ranges, some better than others. The signs that come after the numeral ranges indicate what level that range represents, but have no effect in and of themselves.

{|
|[0:0:0:0:0:0:0] || unattainable
|-
|[0:100:200:300:400:450:500] || ---
|-
|[0:400:600:750:800:900:1100] || --
|-
|[150:600:800:900:1000:1100:1500] || -
|-
|[200:700:900:1000:1100:1300:2000] || Default
|-
|[450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250] || +
|-
|[700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500] || ++
|-
|[1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]|| +++
|-
|[5000:5000:5000:5000:5000:5000:5000]|| max
|}

{{Category|Game mechanics}}
[[ru:Attribute]]

Demon

2026-04-29T22:15:38Z

Silverwing235: /* Killed demons */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits - they are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population (specified as 5-10 in the raws) appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, fire-breath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control the flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door - the ones that can't will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in some [[stupid dwarf trick|dwarven trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know, that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Demon

2026-04-29T22:14:55Z

Silverwing235: /* Killed demons */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits - they are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population (specified as 5-10 in the raws) appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, fire-breath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control the flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door - the ones that can't will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in some [[stupid dwarf trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know, that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Advanced entity position mechanics

2026-04-29T17:35:26Z

Silverwing235: typos,etc

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}

= Introduction =

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=182239.0 Discussion thread on the forum]

This page documents observed and tested behavior of entity positions in Dwarf Fortress that is not fully described elsewhere on the wiki. It focuses on advanced interactions between position tokens, including appointment, succession, election, and responsibility handling, across both civilization-level and site-level entities.

The mechanics described here are based on empirical testing in world generation and fortress mode, supplemented where necessary by raw analysis. In several cases, the game’s behavior is determined by evaluation order and interaction between multiple tags, rather than by individual tokens in isolation.

This page is intended for modders and advanced players who are designing or debugging custom entity position structures. It does not restate basic position mechanics, but instead highlights edge cases, non-obvious interactions, and behaviors that may appear inconsistent or undocumented.

Unless stated otherwise, the described behavior applies to current versions of the game and may differ from older releases.

==What is an entity? What is a position?==
An [[entity]] is an organizational structure that can have relationships with other entities, usually known as a [[civilization]] or a "[[site]] government" in the game, but ie. merchant [[company|companies]], [[Mercenary#Mercenary_Orders|mercenary orders]], [[guild|guilds]], [[religion|religious organizations]], bandits and necromancer towers are also entities (and necromancer towers use the same entity type as "site governments"). An entity can have positions - in most cases, these are hardcoded and generated by the game, but as for civilizations and sites, the [[raw file]]s can be customised.

A position is a special relationship between a unit and an entity. The unit holding a position has a larger influence over that entity than other citizens. Positions are mostly known as [[nobles]], but in this article. the technical term is used.

=Position levels (Site/Civ) and their interaction=
There are two basic types of positions that are customizable: '''civ(ilization)''' level and '''site level'''. Positions with the tag [SITE] are at site level, positions without the tag [SITE] are at 'civ level'. These two types of nobles can be considered '''loosely related systems'''. There are a few places where they can interact with each other.

Civ-level positions are in charge of the civilization as a whole, managing national [[trade]], laws, and [[war]]s. These are, for example, the vanilla [[monarch]], [[diplomat]] and [[general]]. (Note that the general doesn't really do anything, except creation of additional pets in world-gen for the general and possibly raising the animal training knowledge of the civilization to "general familiarity".)

'''[LAND_HOLDER]''' nobles are also positions at civ-level. These units are members of the national government, but have gained authority over some land or site. Once they do, they move to that place, but their position is still regarded as a civ-level position.

Site-level position holders are members of a site government (subsidiary to the civilization), and manage local affairs in that location. These are, for example, the [[mayor]], the [[sheriff]] and the [[broker]].

==Table of interaction between different position levels==
In this table, the possible interactions between different position levels are summarized.
The header row shows the positions defining the tokens.

The left column shows the position type that is referred to.
Example:
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! LAND_HOLDER
|-
| civilization
| (baron is) APPOINTED_BY:MONARCH
|}
color coding: 
* Exists in vanilla
* Possible with mods
* Not possible
* possible to some extent.
* not yet fully investigated.
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! Civilization
! SITE
! LAND_HOLDER
! CONQUERED_SITE

|-
| Civilization
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(1)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(2)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY '''(3)''' COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(4)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| LAND_HOLDER
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(6)''' SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(5)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(7)''' SUCCESSION '''(8)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| CONQUERED_SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
|}

Remarks:
# Works only in world-gen, if a unit with that civ-position is present at the site.
# Works only in world-gen, the site-position holding unit will then move to the capital.
# Is completely ignored
# Works only in world-gen.
# Works only in world-gen.
# Won't appear at all
# This is necessary for the landholder chain to work properly, it doesn’t work otherwise.
# This works only outside of the landholder chain, so when landholders are simply regarded as civ-level nobles. might also work in world-gen
#

== Other interactions ==

Unfortunately, interactions with positions of other entities don't seem possible, such as APPOINTED_BY: HIGH_PRIEST. With [VARIABLE_POSITIONS], positions are automatically created with codes like CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, but interaction with these positions don't seem to work, either. For more info on those, see [[Variable positions]]

=General=

==Civ-level nobles living at your site==
Nobles from your civilization can come to live at your fortress. This happens in vanilla with landholders such as [[Baron]], [[Count]] and [[Duke]], with the Monarch, but sometimes also with non-landed LAND_HOLDERS.

When a civ-level noble becomes a [[citizen]] at your location, their position is shown among the site-level positions in your [[nobles screen]]. They appear to function as a site-level noble. They may have [[demand]]s, [[mandate]]s, [[squad]]s and the like. They can appoint nobles at the site-level.

Even if they have certain site related [RESPONSIBILITY]ies, they will not do the tasks that go with them.

==Fortress mode, world-gen and their differences==
Their are a few differences in how positions function between fortress mode (normal play mode) and the world generation (world-gen).

In '''fortress mode''', the player has some control over the appointment of nobles, limited by elections, automatic filled-in positions and succession rules. Pre-fortress mode, which is referred to as '''world-gen''', the game will always attempt to assign nobles whenever possible. It is subjected to the same rules as in fortress-mode, but there are some exceptions. In '''[[World activities]]''', which is the thing that happens in the world while you play fortress mode, it seems as if the same rules are applied as fortress mode.

A difference between player-fortress-mode and world-gen, is causes by visibility (see below). Positions that are not visible by the player and thus not available for assignment, will be available in world-gen and will thus be automatically assigned.

In fortress mode, a position that is both [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY], cannot be appointed by the player and is also not elected, and can thus not be filled. But in world-gen sites however, these positions are automatically filled.

Positions with [AS_NEEDED] are almost never created and filled in world-gen (depending on their [RESPONSIBILITY]ies), but can always be used in player mode.

A position can, in fortress mode, be filled by the same unit. A unit can gain multiple positions in fortress mode, for example because of [[elections]]. This will not happen in world-gen mode: a unit can only have one position. See also remarks on 'embark' and 'Losing a position'.

In world-gen, [SUCCESSION] between civ-levels and [SITE-]levels may happen. This will not happen in fortress mode, or even off-site in [[World activities]].

In fortress mode, premature SUCCESSION may happen. This will not happen in world-gen mode.

==Units holding multiple positions in multiple entities==
A unit can hold multiple positions in its civilisation or in its site-entity, however in world-gen a unit will not hold multiple positions in one site-entity or in one civilisation (note that in world-gen a unit can hold multiple variable positions of the same entity, if the entity is ie. an outcast group). It is however possible - in world-gen - for a unit to hold multiple positions as long as the positions belong to different civilizations / site-entities (ie. it is possible for a militia commander of a site-entity to later on also become a monarch of the parent civilization, while staying a militia commander), if a unit holds a position of two different site-entities (the unit will usually have left one of the groups, without relinquishing the position). Only at player-managed sites can units be holding multiple positions (of the site-entity) at once. It is currently unknown, whether it is possible in world-gen for a unit to have a civ-level position in two different civilisations (but it probably is possible, as a a unit can belong to multiple civilizations and a unit usually does not relinquish a position, when the unit gets another position, as long as the entities of both positions are not the same).

In world-gen, if there are too many positions to be filled, they simply stay empty until more units are available. E.G, a unit at a site might inherit a civ-level position and still remain a member of the local government. When this happens however, they move to the capital. If a unit gains a new position, either inherited or otherwise, it drops the previous one (of that civilisation or site-entity) - the unit will not drop any positions unrelated to the entity of the new position (ie. a CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR will not relinquish that position, if the unit becomes the ruler of a civilization and a militia commander will also not necessarily relinquish the position, if the unit becomes also the monarch of the corresponding civilization). If a unit assumes a civ-position in fortress mode, it leaves the current position.

If a unit holds the same site-position multiple times, it has no additional effect.

If a unit holds multiple different positions of the same entity, it has all those positions' responsibilities and properties, stacked up. Presumably, the demands for those combined positions are determined by the highest.

A unit holding a position with a succession token can be assigned another position with a (different) succession token.

A unit holding a position with a squad-position cannot hold another squad-position. It is dropped from the first of those, when the second position is assigned.
A unit holding a position with a succession token cannot be assigned to a squad-position - the unit is simply not available. It works the other way around, though.

=Specific Tags and functions=
==[PRECEDENCE]==
The first defined position with precedence of 1 counts as the ruler of the civ. See also: [[Position_token#PRECEDENCE|PRECEDENCE]].

If the precedence is omitted or has a negative value, the game sets 0 as precedence, which seems to have no effect whatsoever. When a unit has multiple positions, the name of the position with the highest rank in precedence is shown behind the unit's name.

If you omit precedence entirely, or set it to [PRECEDENCE:NONE], the position name will not be shown after the unit’s name. Your *Urist Mason* will remain simply *Mason*. This can be useful for positions that are unimportant or purely functional. The position will also not appear in the civilisation overview of your site on the world map. The position name is shown in messages, but remains hidden on the nobles screen as well. To make it visible there, use [LAND_NAME].

==[RESPONSIBILITY]ies==
Both civ and [SITE] positions can carry responsibilities. However, not all responsibilities are active for both types: some function only for civ positions, others only for site positions. When a civ noble arrives at a site and takes up residence, they do not perform responsibilities that are intended for SITE nobles. As a result, these responsibilities neither trigger their associated tasks nor unlock related game mechanics. For example, a civ-level manager living in a fortress will not perform management duties there and doesn't unlock the management-screen, even with an assigned office.
This behavior applies to the following [SITE]-level responsibilities:
* [RESPONSIBILITY:ACCOUNTING]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:BUILD_MORALE]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_ENFORCEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MANAGE_PRODUCTION]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MEET_WORKERS]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:TRADE] (functions differently)
Other responsibilities may be affected as well, but have not yet been fully tested.

===World-gen effects of the [RESPONSIBILITY] of available positions ===
It is possible to cause civs and individual sites to change their behavior substantially when they reach a certain size, by controlling nobles.
* If a site can only appoint a position with [MILITARY_GOALS] after reaching a particular size, that site will not send armies on missions until the required size is reached.
* A civ-level [LAW_MAKING] position is required for the civilization to have any kind of cohesion. Without it, sites will be constantly embroiled in territorial disputes and civil wars will be commonplace.
* [MILITARY_STRATEGY] positions go out and tame wild animals. This makes your civ gain those animals as domesticated and also brings them in sieges.
* The [[Personality_facet|Personality]] of the position's holder determines how they lead the civ.

===[DELIVERS_MESSAGES]===
The only [AS_NEEDED]-position that is created in worldgen based on responsibility is that of the site-level responsibility [DELIVERS_MESSAGES].

===Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats===
Civ-positions with the responsibility [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS] ([[Outpost_Liaison|Outpost Liaison]]s) will meet with the site-noble who has responsibility for [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] and the highest rank of precedence (i.e. the lowest precedence value). Usually this is the [[Expedition_leader|Expedition leader]].

Once a [LAND_HOLDER] is assigned to the site, civ-positions with the responsibility [MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS] ([[Diplomat]]s) will meet with '''civ'''-level nobles present at the site who have the [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] responsibility. If multiple eligible nobles are available, one is selected at random. If no eligible noble is present, the diplomat leaves angrily. If the landholder is no longer present at the site, diplomats will not arrive at all.

It appears that Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats are chosen for a diplomatic mission based on availability. When multiple candidates exist, the position defined last in the raws is most often selected.

===[TRADE]===
Civ-level nobles with [TRADE] will arrive with the caravan, just as the Outpost Liaison. Their behavior is no longer active in the vanilla game, but the mechanics are still present. See [[40d:Guild_representative|Guild representative]] for more details. This civ-noble will only meet with the SITE noble with [TRADE], usually the [[Broker]].

If two civ-nobles exist with both [TRADE] and [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS], they both arrive at the same time. Even if both tokens are assigned to a single position, if more than one instance of that position exists, two of them will arrive. However in that case, somehow the elevation of the site and appointment of landholder isn't offered.

If the SITE-noble they intend to meet has both [TRADE] and [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], only one meeting will proceed and the other is cancelled. However, when two SITE-nobles are available, each with either [TRADE] or [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], both meetings will proceed and both civ-nobles will attempt to negotiate a trade agreement. It is not known what happens if these agreements are accepted or refused.

In the trade depot, the last defined position with the [TRADE] responsibility is shown as broker. However when requesting a trader, the first defined position with [TRADE] will actually go there to do the trade.

==[NUMBER]==
A position might be defined with a number. In that case, as many as defined can be available. If the positions become available, in world-gen and when embarking, they are all filled-in completely.

If the ruling position (with PRECEDENCE of 1) has a NUMBER higher than 1, a random unit of the ones holding these positions is shown as ruler in the embark screen.

A [NUMBER] of 0 (zero) has the same effect as 1.

===Automatic spreading of assumed, non-singular positions===
If there are civ positions that have a NUMBER higher then '1' and which are assumed (not APPOINTED_BY or ELECTED) but are '''not DUTY_BOUND''', these are automatically spread among the civilisation, based on population. If there are a number of '''20''' available slots of that position, they spread among a civilization with a combined population of, for example, 1000 of which your fortress has 100 (10%), '''2''' of your fortress' citizens will assume that position.
This may probably also work with elected and appointed positions, but that may be depending on the death of the current holders and this needs more testing. Assumption works within a day, anyway.

===[AS_NEEDED]===
These positions can be created automatically by the game in world-gen. This, however, only works with:
* [LAND_HOLDER]'s
* squad commanders (needs more testing)
* Messengers at sites

For all other types of positions, they're not created in world-gen, even if they are defined with RESPONSIBILITY's. For example, even in war, the game wouldn't create a MILITARY_GOALS position, if they have AS_NEEDED as number.

However, in fortress mode / player mode, these positions can be created by the player at will.

Positions with AS_NEEDED need to be created first, before any symbols are assignable as 'symbols' (objects) for the position holder to carry or wear.

Positions with AS_NEEDED cannot be created and then ELECTED in fortress mode. It only works with APPOINTED_BY.

==[REPLACED_BY], [REQUIRES_POPULATION], [REQUIRES_MARKET]==

The token [REPLACED_BY:position] means that once the replacing position meets its requirements for activation, the 'to-be-replaced' position will disappear. This is defined in [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or [REQUIRES_MARKET]. The tags are closely related to each other and seem to only have a meaningful function if combined. Nobles with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size. Nobles with [REQUIRES_MARKET] are only activated in market sites, such as fortresses or towns. [REQUIRES_POPULATION] and [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be combined, activating that position once both requirements are met.

The [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be used to differentiate positions between hamlets and hillocks, and larger sites. IThe market always is build the year after the site is founded. So a position that is to be replaced, will be gone immediately.

The [REQUIRES_POPULATION]-tag works on the civ-level as well as on site-level, but those systems are in this mechanic strictly separated. Site-level positions cannot be replaced by civ-level positions and visa versa. This makes sense, because they both depend on their own population-count. When using REQUIRES_POPULATION on civ-level, it counts the total population of the civilisation.

See also: [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Evaluation_of_Positions|Evaluation of positions]]

===Effect of replacement (and on [LAND_HOLDER]s)===

Replacement is immediate and complete - the current holding unit loses the position, even before SUCCESSION_BY_POSITION rules are applied. A position with a number of 1 will replace all the slots of a position with a higher number of slots.

Even if the next position is available but not visible, replacement still takes place. If a position is replaced, it is completely gone - it cannot be appointed, succeeded, elected or assumed any longer.
The unit immediately loses its position.

In legends, replacement is mentioned as: "(unit name) ceased to be (position name)" The replacement of an AS_NEEDED position empties the position's slot forever. In fortress mode, it may seem as if you can create new slots and appoint new units in the nobles screen, but this is reversed as soon as you close the window.

The landholder chain uses [REPLACED_BY] differently. It does not clear the position completely, but uses it for succession to the next level's position. [REPLACE_BY] is required to let that system work properly. This also means that the way in which landholders succeed (replace + as_needed) does not work in any other way.

Replacement between LAND_HOLDERS and other site- or civ positions does not work in any way. Only the vanilla replacement sequence between levels of LAND_HOLDERs does work. If the token is omitted for landholders, the landholder chain is broken, so replacement is required for the landholder system to work.

[REQUIRES_POPULATION] also does not work for [LAND_HOLDER], when you set [NUMBER] to 1. The position is not created when the required population is reached.

===What doesn't work===

'''Attention: If a position cannot be appointed, for example because of 'mutual appointment', it still exists according to replacement mechanics and will replace other positions if so defined. If a certain position(a) will be replaced by the baron's assistant, which can only be appointed by the [LAND_HOLDER] baron, than that position(s) still will be replaced from the start of the game, even if no baron or their assistant is ever present.'''

A position that is replaced by a somehow non-fillable position is still replaced. This counts for mutual-appointing positions, replacement by not-yet-assigned landholders, replacement by AS_NEEDED positions, or replacement by not-yet-appointed positions.

Replacement does not work if the replaced position is a [LAND_HOLDER], even with civ-positions. In that case, the LAND_HOLDER's position is not replaced. It does not matter if AS_NEEDED is used, or a fixed number, and it also does not matter what type of position the replacer is. So this only works (correctly) with positions that become available by REQUIRES_POPULATION.

==[CONQUERED_SITE]==

This tag determines which position is used to assign a [[Forced administrator]].

In legends mode, this is visible as an event describing the reconquest of the site: a new group is formed and the forced administrator is installed as its ruler.

All positions defined with this tag are assigned during this process, meaning multiple positions can be appointed at once.

The holder of a position marked with [CONQUERED_SITE] cannot appoint any other [SITE] positions, unless the civilization has site variable positions, in which case the forced administrator can appoint such site variable positions (allthough the variable positions for that site need to be created first and such creation only happens during world-gen, but not normal world activities).

Combining [CONQUERED_SITE] with [SITE] causes the position to function both as a forced administrator and as a normal site position available in fortress mode. However, this provides no meaningful additional mechanics and is effectively inferior to using [SITE] alone:
* [APPOINTED_BY] lines are completely ignored, meaning that the roles are automatically assumed.
* [SUCCESSION] is likewise ignored.
* the [CONQUERED_SITE]-position cannot appoint other [CONQUERED_SITE], [SITE] or combined positions.

There have been remarks that reclaiming a fortress is unplayable because of the lack of regular nobles. Unfortunately, it seems that it can't be fixed by modding.

=Availability and visibility=
==Availability of (new) positions==
Warning: Do not mistake "availability" for "visibility"!

Of all the possible positions existing in your site's entity, there may only be some available.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_MARKET] will only appear in "large" sites (which may have different rules for different site types). This tag has no effect in fort mode.
* Positions that are appointed by positions that have an AS_NEEDED number. The appointable positions only become available after an appointer position-slot is created. This works also on civ-level. If a position is appointed by a Land-holder, it only becomes available, when that level of landholder is created.

Only the replaced positions are culled and are no longer available.
A position that requires a certain population will become available, even if it doesn't have [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED]. In that case, see 'automatic assignment' and 'assumption'

In fortress mode, in some cases 'succession' is evaluated immediately after a position becomes available. See: Succession.
==Visibility of positions==
A position might be available, but can still be invisible for the player in the [[nobles screen]]. The positions with their respective holders are visible for players:
* All site-positions that are already filled-in (even if they could not be re-filled-in considering current conditions)
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in site position
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in civ position, when that civ positions holder becomes a citizen of your fortress.
* Civ positions of units that are also a citizen of your fortress.
If a position becomes available, for example because a certain pop number has been reached, or if it is available from the start(like expedition leader), as long as it cannot be appointed, it still is INVISIBLE for the player.

It might strike someone as odd if a position becomes filled automatically in fortress mode when that position is not even visible. This might be the case if the current holder of a non-appointable position dies or succeeds another position. Regardless of player visibility, these positions will be automatically filled in if the necessary requisitions are met. It might happen with the expedition leader.

A situation with a non-visible but available position, is for example when a position is solely appointed by the expedition leader, when the expedition leader's position is left vacant. It can no longer be appointed by the player and is invisible. Then, it gets automatically assumed, proving that the position still was available.

A position that is both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] is visible, but players cannot interact with it.

={{text anchor|Evaluation of Positions}}=
The game does not continuously check whether positions should become available, elected or be [REPLACE_BY]. This is well-known behavior—for example with the [[mayor]], who does not appear automatically when the required population ([REQUIRES_POPULATION]) is reached. Instead, positions must somehow be evaluated. This applies in several other situations as well

'''Cases that require a trigger:'''
* Election of a newly created position
* Election after the current holder dies
* Automatic assumption of a newly created position (this may take up to a day)
* New citizens (such as migrants) considering available positions
* Premature succession of a newly created position

'''Cases that do not wait for a trigger:'''
* Succession following the death of the previous holder
* Automatic assumption of existing positions that have become vacant

'''Triggers that cause the game to reevaluate noble positions:'''
* Succession of a [SITE]-position due to the death of the current holder
* [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Election_Day|Election Day]]
* Automatic assumption of a [SITE]-position that becomes vacant
* (Re)assigning any site position manually
* Settlement elevation on the LAND_HOLDER track (e.g. gaining a [[Baron]] or [[Count]])

=Gaining a position=
There are several ways a unit can gain a position:
* Appointment: A unit is appointed by another unit or by the player.
* Election: A unit is elected by and among the members of the entity
* Assumption: A position is neither elected or appointed: a random unit just simply 'takes' the position
* Succession: a unit is the valid successor of this position(A), either by its current position(B) or because they are that position(A)-holder's heir.

Available positions will automatically be assigned to a random civ member when a new site/civ is created.

==Who can take a position==

* If so defined, a unit needs to be the right caste and/or class - it does not seem to work with creature types.
* The unit needs to be an adult member of the site or its parent civ's government; that is also CAN_LEARN or INTELLIGENT (SLOW_LEARNER cannot take positions) or otherwise is able to think.

==Appointment==

Positions that have an [APPOINTED_BY:position] token require that position to exist, to be available and appointed. Any position that is APPOINTED_BY can be appointed if the appointer's position is filled in.
For site-positions to be appointed, it is required that the appointer is present at that location.

If the appointing unit is temporarily not present, or if that position is not filled, positions depending on it cannot be appointed. This is the case with [[militia captains]], when the [[militia commander]] is on a [[mission]].

A site position cannot appoint a civ position ''or'' LAND_HOLDER in any way whatsoever.

Civ-level positions can appoint other civ-level positions and site-level positions can appoint other site-level positions.

Contrary to what has been said elsewhere, civ-level nobles also can appoint site-level nobles. They need to be at the site to do so. Landholders can appoint both site-level and civ-level nobles. These systems are therefore not as separate as was assumed.

'''Mutual appointment''' cannot take place. If these are the only requisites of the position, then the positions will never appear or get filled. These unfillable positions can be put to good use, for example, to replace a position that is no longer needed without creating a new one.

'''Self appointment''' doesn't normally work. If you have a position that is only appointed by itself, it is never appointed and also cannot be assumed. However, if the position has a number higher than 1, and is filled by multiple units (for example by another position that is now empty), than those units can re-assign or appoint each other from that their shared position.

If an APPOINTED_BY token refers to a non-existing position's code, the effects are as if the appointment token doesn't exist at all.

===Automatic appointment in world-gen and on the civ level===

Outside of fortress mode, the game will always attempt to appoint nobles whenever possible, as long as these positions are '''available''', even if they are invisible to the player.
It shows this message in legends: "(unit name) has been appointed to the position of (position name)"

In world-gen, all positions become available and are automatically appointed, taking population- and appointment-requirements into consideration.

Positions that are REPLACED_BY are culled and won't be filled.

If a citizen of your fortress holds a civ-level position that can appoint another civ-level position, the appointment will happen automatically and without player intervention. It may happen that another citizen of your fortress is appointed by that unit, creating civ-level position holders in your fortress, but it is unknown what is required to force this effect.

===Manual appointments by players in fortress mode===
In fortress mode, the positions that need to be appointed stay empty on embark. and it is the player's job to appoint those. A player can appoint a unit to any available position, according to the hereabove mentioned conditions. The player takes the role of the automatic appointment-system, but has no direct control over elections, successions and replacement. There are some differences in what is possible at world-gen sites and at player-controlled sites.

* A position that is appointed by a unit present as a fortress citizen, can be appointed, re-appointed or left vacant. This means also by civ-level nobles living as a citizen in your fortress; not when they are only visiting, like the diplomat.
* A position whose appointing positions are all either vacant or [REPLACED_BY] can no longer be appointed. If the position is already filled, it cannot be reappointed or vacated; the current holder simply remains in office.
* A position that is APPOINTED_BY a unit present as the land_holder of your site, can be appointed, reassigned or left vacant.
* A position that has SUCCESSION BY_HEIR or BY_POSITION can 'initially' be appointed and also re-appointed or left vacant, but as soon as the [[nobles]] screen closes, ''it can no longer be replaced or left vacant''. From then on, the succession-rules determine who gains that position when the current holder loses the position. This works even if the SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION-position is vacant or replaced.
* A position that is ELECTED nor APPOINTED_BY, can always be (re-)appointed by the player. This is the case with the [[Expedition leader]]. If it is left vacant however, it cannot be appointed, but will be assumed shortly after.
* A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY, cannot be appointed by the player. Contrary to world-gen sites, its slot is visible, but it doesn't show the +-sign. This is either by AS_NEEDED or by a fixed number. Even if the position somehow gets filled (re)assignment is never possible
* A player can appoint a number of units to a position, as much as the NUMBER token dictates. If it is AS_NEEDED, the player may create as many slots as they like, also contrary to world-gen sites.
* A civ-position can never be appointed, even if the appointing civ noble is a citizen of your fortress. A civ position also never can be re-assigned or left vacant, would that position be defined as appointed by a site-position.

==Election==
Read more in [[Elections]]. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) has been elected to the position of (position name)"

In worldgen, there is no functional difference between ELECTED and non-appointment, except that elected nobles tend to have high social skills and/or skills related to the position, while non-elected ones are assigned randomly. See: [[Elections]]

A succession goes before an election.

A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY never gets elected. Even if the appointees' position somehow gets filled, (re)-elections won't happen. So, it doesn't seem possible to have an elected position become available when a certain other position becomes filled.

An ELECTED civ-(or LAND_HOLDER) position at your site will never be (re)-elected in fortress mode. So real (re-)election only works with SITE-positions.

=== {{text anchor|Election Day}} ===
Election Day takes place on the 17th of Summer. On this day, a full reevaluation is performed, including all currently elected positions, which are subject to re-election. Contrary to the information on [[Elections]], nothing occurs at the start of a season.

Positions that are both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] will not be re-elected on Election Day when assigned through [SUCCESSION].

=== Election Eligiblity ===
Any citizen may stand for election. Eligibility cannot be restricted using [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS], or [GENDER]. Units currently having a [SUCCESSION]-position even may be elected for a position with a [SQUAD]-token, which is otherwise impossible to assign or even succeed.

=== Skills ===
In elections, skills are taken into account for the tokens of the position which is elected.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Relevant skills per position token
|-
! Position Token !! Relevant skills
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#DELIVER_MESSAGES|[DELIVER_MESSAGES]]] || [[Ambusher]], [[Observer]] and [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ACCOUNTING|[ACCOUNTING]]] || [[Record_keeper|Record keeper]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ESPIONAGE|[ESPIONAGE]]] || [[Schemer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#HEALTH_MANAGEMENT|[HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]]] || [[Diagnostician|Diagnostician]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS|[MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MANAGE_PRODUCTION|[MANAGE_PRODUCTION]]] || [[Organizer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MEET_WORKERS|[MEET_WORKERS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS|[RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RELIGION|[RELIGION]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TAME_EXOTICS|[TAME_EXOTICS]]] || [[Animal_trainer|Animal trainer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TRADE|[TRADE]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]] and [[Appraiser|Appraiser]]
|-
| [[Position_token#SQUAD|[SQUAD]]]-token || [[Tactician]] and [[Leader]]
|}

==Assumption==

A position that is not APPOINTED_BY nor ELECTED, or is appointed by positions that are not available in your site or civ, will be assumable by a random dwarf. If it has responsibilities that require certain skills, then these are taken into consideration on embark, but not when the position is assumed during the actual game.

Normally, one to three units will take the into consideration to assume a position. Most of the time when there are multiple open positions, only a single unit will assume all of them. However, a position that has REJECTED_CREATURE, REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CREATURE or ALLOWED_CLASS will be filled with all different units, even if the creature or class mentioned is irrelevant. It seems that this forces the game to loop over all the available units.

The message that is shown in Legends mode is: "(unit name) has assumed the position of (position name)". This may also take place in fortress mode, which then shows this message to the player.

If an assumable position becomes empty, it will be assumed within a day. This is the case when you leave the position of expedition-leader vacant. It also happens with entities.

Assumable positions that become empty will not be assumed if that position has a valid [SUCCESSION] -successor. In that case, the successor inherits the position.

Even positions that are somehow invisible because they cannot be directly APPOINTED_BY players, can be assumed.

When you embark, the assumable positions are automatically assigned to a random unit. If there are multiple of these positions at embark, they all are assigned to the same unit. If there are enough positions available, multiple units may gain a position, but often no more than three different ones.

If a dwarf in fortress mode assumes a position, that already has another position, it will leave the current position empty. When that position also is assumed, then this will continue until all positions have a dwarf appointed to them, with no other position.

A unit that already has a position with a [SUCCESSION] token won't take assumable positions into consideration that have a [SQUAD] token. This can be used by the modder to prevent unwanted loss of current positions.

A position that has an appointer which got replaced because of REPLACED_BY, will not become assumable. Also, positions that have an AS_NEEDED appointer that is not yet filled (or ever), will also not be assumed.

==Succession==

If a position-holder dies or advances to a new position via succession, the position will be granted to another unit based on the [SUCCESSION] tag. If they have an heir or the succeeding position exists, that unit will be assigned. If not, a new one will be appointed according to the usual rules. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) being the rightful heir, has inherited the position of (position name)"

The succeeding creature will also lose its previous position. When succession is defined using BY_POSITION, the unit naturally loses the referenced position. However, it also loses any other positions it may hold. If a unit could simultaneously inherit multiple positions, the last-defined succession overrides the earlier one, clearing the previously acquired position

Succession works both at site-level and at civ-level, both in world-gen and in fortress-mode. Succession by position on the civ-level is also visible and functional in fortress-mode. If both civ-level nobles are a citizen of your fortress, succession is applied visually. Vanilla example: The [[druid]] is succeeded by the [[acolyte]]. This means that as soon as the druid dies, the acolyte takes over.

When a position that is succeeded by position becomes available, immediately it is checked if a position-successor is available and the position is filled with that unit. Even if this is an [ELECTED] position, succession goes first. When elections eventually do happen, succession plays no role.

It is possible to assign multiple levels of [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] in different positions, creating a line of positions where the death of one causes all those "below" them to advance.

A position can have multiple tokens with position-succession. It looks to be random which one is used. It is not always:
* The first or last defined token
* The first or last appointed unit
* the oldest or youngest
* one with a higher or lower precedence
* a unit with relevant skills

When a position is defined with a Succession-type, that unit cannot have another position that has a Squad-type. If the succession-position itself has a squad, than it can be assigned another position with a squad, but then it will loose the previous succesion position. See further details by "Squad"

Assumed positions can also be succeeded by position, if the current holder dies.

If the successor is an AS_NEEDED position, the used unit will leave a vacant position-slot on its removal by succession. This empty slot remains a real slot, which will only be cleaned up if you (un)appoint a unit to this position-series. It isn't cleaned up after regular position validation.

A civ-level position of a unit living at your site might be inherited by a unit holding that does not currently live at your site. This, unfortunately, moves that position to a unit off site. This may also happen with the landholder of your site, for example when it is succeeded by another civ-level position. This currently poses an unsolved challenge.

===Eligibility for succession===
Succession is restricted by the tokens [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS] and [GENDER].

===Site and civ combined succession===

Succession can work when combining site positions with civ-level positions or land_holders, but only in world-gen mode. In fortress mode, it only works with combining the same level of nobles, with Landholders regarded as civ-level. So, in fortress mode, a site's position cannot succeed a landholder's position and it cannot succeed another type of civ-level position, and vice versa.

This won't work even if the positions:
* are AS_NEEDED or having a fixed number.
* Are LAND_HOLDERs.

===Succession [BY_HEIR]===

When a heir is needed for succession, all children and then other relatives are validated. They cannot take the position if their status does not allow it, for example if they have become a member of another civilisation. See: "Who can take a position". If the unit has no valid heir on that location, the position may go to a unit living on another site. This may cause the title of Landholder of some land to be inherited by a unit living somewhere else. That might be a problem, because then you lose your landholders.

===Premature Succession===

There are cases where [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] is applied prematurely: at the moment a position is first created and becomes appointable or assumable, rather than after a current holder leaves. In this situation, the succession mechanism assigns a holder immediately, without any player interaction.

When a position becomes available for the first time, the game checks whether a valid successor-by-position exists. If so, that unit is assigned instantly. It can affect positions that would normally be appointed or elected by the player, causing succession to trigger before the player has any opportunity to intervene.

This behavior occurs only in Fortress mode, but can be applied both on [SITE]-positions as well in civ-positions. That last one however is a bit harder to control. Example: [[Advanced entity position mechanics#The Archduke|The Archduke]]

This premature succession only occurs the first time a position becomes available (i.e. when it is created and becomes appointable or assumable). Even if the position remains vacant and the conditions for succession improve later, premature succession will not trigger again. From that point onward, only normal succession rules apply.

Using premature succession, a position that has [ELECTED], [APPOINTED_BY], or both, can be filled directly.
Notably, positions that combine [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY] are normally impossible to fill through regular mechanics. Premature succession bypasses both election and appointment entirely, making this combination uniquely reachable through this mechanism.

No initial election takes place, and no subsequent elections will ever occur for that position. Succession always takes precedence over election, both in premature succession and in normal succession cases.

This behavior applies only in Fortress mode, not during world generation. World-gen uses simplified and more efficient mechanics, and this interaction does not occur there. Premature succession can affect both site-level and civilization-level positions.

====Multiple succession chains====

Multiple succession chains may be defined and are resolved in the order they appear in the raws.

If a position has both:
* a direct succession chain (A → C), and
* a multi-step chain (A → B → C),

and intermediate positions are vacant, resolution proceeds according to raw order. A common outcome is:
# The direct succession (A → C) is applied first, assigning A to C.
# The remaining chain then advances (A → B).
# If C still has empty slots, the final step (B → C) may occur.

If position B is already filled, behavior depends entirely on raw definition order:
* nothing may happen, or
* B may move to C first, followed by A moving to B.
====Working triggers====
Premature succession is triggered when a succeedable position is created under the following conditions:
* The succeedable position is created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] threshold is reached. This applies even if the position is not [APPOINTED_BY]. Premature succession takes priority over automatic assumption (e.g. the mayor declaring themselves within a day).
** The position must either be assumable or appointed by an existing position. When said appointer-position also just has been created, the premature succession of the succeedable position happenes, even when the appointer-position is empty.
* The succeedable position can be [APPOINTED_BY] another position of the same level (site or civ) that has just been created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] was reached.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another [SITE] [AS_NEEDED] position that has just been created and filled.
* The succeedable (site or civ) position is [APPOINTED_BY] the [LAND_HOLDER] position, which has just been created due to site elevation. This typically resolves when the diplomat leaves the map, at which point the landholder position becomes active.
* If all other requirements are met, premature succession can occur immediately after unpausing following embark, for positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION:7].

====Non-working (triggers)====
Premature succession does '''not''' occur in the following cases:
* An [AS_NEEDED] succeedable position slot is manually created by the player while its succeeding position is already filled. [AS_NEEDED] positions must always be appointed after creation.
* The succeeding position is filled after the succeedable position becomes available. The moment of creation is the decisive trigger; filling the source position later is too late.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another site or civ position with a fixed number of slots that has just been appointed. In this case, the succeedable position is just available for appointment itself, nothing more
* Any situation occurring during world generation.
* The succeeding position is [REPLACED_BY] the succeedable position. In this case, replacement removes the unit from the source position first, leaving no holder available for the succession mechanism to use.
* The position is [APPOINTED_BY] a civ-level position, that just became a citizen of your fortress. It must be noted that those civ-level positions were active all that time and the succeedable position could be appointed even before. The monarchs arrival does not trigger premature succession
* A [SQUAD]-position cannot inherit another [SQUAD]-position. This also means that premature succession will not work in this case.

=Losing a position=

A unit can lose a position when:
* It dies
* It succeeds another position, even if it has nothing to do with the previous position.
* It is assigned to another SQUAD-holding position
* It is convicted of a crime.
* Another unit is ELECTED for the position
* It is convinced by an adventurer to give up its position, or is overthrown in a coup.
* Its position becomes replaced
* Another unit is appointed by the player, or the position is left vacant.
* It has assumed another position (of the same entity), as this always leaves the previous position vacant.

Note: A unit does not lose a position when the unit leaves the group (entity). Neither will a unit lose a position, if the corresponding entity is considered to be dead.

=Embarkment=
Two types of positions are automatically filled by embark.
* Positions without [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED] (assumable). All these positions, even with a NUMBER higher than 1, are all filled with one to three dwarves. Contrary to assumption, this doesn't take into account any limitations. REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CLASS, REJECTED_CREATURE, ALLOWED_CREATURE and GENDER are applied, but without the normal spread you may expect with assumptions. Also it doesn't look at [SUCCESSION] and [SQUAD] limitations.
* Positions that are elected are filled-in by the normal election rules.

Positions that have a defined appointer are never initially filled at embark.

All positions that don't have [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or with a [REQUIRES_POPULATION] of 7 or lower, will be available at embark.

=Land Holders=

A Landholder is a '''special civ-level noble''' who gets a certain piece of land to hold, when that land is elevated to a certain level, determined by the [LAND_HOLDER] tag, and by the landholder triggers in the game's settings. In vanilla, these are the baron, the count and the duke.

A unit gaining the landholder position does not migrate to that specific named land. In world-gen, they stay just where they are, probably at the capital. In fortress mode, you can suggest a citizen for the role. So for the time being that works.

Succession is then a real issue. If you use BY_HEIR, its solved when that landholder has children living at your site. But when its not the case, the title just goes to anyone randomly. Succession BY_POSITION works, but only in the civ-chain, and there's no way to guarantee a civ-holder is at your site at that time. Even with 'automatic spread' positions, it goes to one of them randomly.

==Functioning of the regular landholder chain==

The distinct difference between a landholder and a regular civ-level noble, is that a landholder may gain the position of landholder "of (sitename)" They are then seen as ruler of a particular site.

For a land_holder position to function as such, it has a few requirements:
* NUMBER:AS_NEEDED
* The first landholder-number of 1 is defined.
* No SITE (so civ) tag in that position.
*REPLACED_BY the next level landholder
If a landholder is defined with differentiating properties, it will function like a regular noble. A higher-up landholder that lacks the required tokens or connections will then not be used in elevation.

If a fortress meets the trigger for a new LAND_HOLDER tier when a caravan leaves, then the next time the outpost liaison or equivalent arrives, they will offer to make you an official colony, which will allow you to select all positions for that LAND_HOLDER level. Each time they appear, the outpost liaison will only promote your fortress one tier up the LAND_HOLDER track.

The landholder's LAND_NAME is not required for the functioning of this system. If omitted, messages will be shown with a more generic text.

==Appointment==

This mechanism differs from the regular methods of position management. It ignores all regular appointment- and election rules, so it more or less functions like automatic assignment. A landholder is, in vanilla, appointed by the monarch. Changing this doesn't seem to do anything. If they are appointed by a site-position, a not-yet-existing civ-position, or not appointed at all: the system keeps working as usual.

A landholder can appoint civ-positions and site positions. This works as expected: the positions only are appointed then when that landholder becomes available on civ-level or when he arrives at that site for site-level positions.

If your rank of landholder is the first of its rank in the realm, and is the sole appointer of some civ-position, then immediately as it gains the title, it will appoint the empty civ-slots. This may happen on your site, but the frequency and certainty is hard to determine.

==Succession==

Succession rules are applied to some extent:
* In world-gen it works according to succession rules, and site-positions can be used here. This means that a site position or a civ-position can inherit a landholder position, and vice versa.
* In fortress mode, once a landholder has been appointed, it then can inherit civ-level positions, and vice versa. This means that your baron can become king.
* Succession rules do not apply within the [LAND_HOLDER] chain; a count will not inherit a baron's land. This is because succession does not work well with the AS_NEEDED token.
* Premature succession works in fortress mode with landholders. If a unit gets a landholder's position and that landholder is the appointer of an as yet empty position, which is defined as succeeding from a third one, then the succession is immediately applied. The landholder themselves can even be the successor of a newly created position.
* A landholder's position is, in fortress mode, not successionable by a site-position or vice versa

===Impossibilities for succession by a site-position===
It would be very beneficial if the landholder can be succeeded by a [SITE]-position. So far, the following tests have not lead to positive results:
* making landholder and site-position both non-[DUTY_BOUND]
* make the site-position be [APPOINTED_BY] the landholder and/or the monarch
* give landholder and site-position [REJECTED_CREATURE]
* Let the monarch live at your site when succession could happen.
* Let the site-position be [REPLACED_BY] the landholder.

If the vanilla [SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]-tag is omitted, a seemingly random unit somewhere in the realm is assigned this position.

==Nomination==

The player is able to nominate a unit to become the LAND_HOLDER, but this only works with units of [LAND_HOLDER] level 1. The player can select all units, only limited by the PRECEDENCE of the current units' positions.

A unit that has a position with a PRECEDENCE lower or equal to that of the landholder's position, cannot be selected. This means that a baron (or count) from another site or the monarch cannot be selected, because their precedence is lower or equal.

The GENDER token does not work here: also units with the wrong gender (sorry) can be selected.

==Levels==
In mods, up to 10 levels of LAND_HOLDER may be defined.

If a landholder is replaced by a wrong landholder number (1 replaced by 3), then the number 3 is still correctly attached to the settlement.

If the current landholder has the highest available landholder number, then the next elevation will not happen - the diplomat will not elevate your fortress to a higher position, even if that position might be REPLACED_BY a lower landholder.

These chains do work:
* 1 -> 2a - > 2b -> 3
* 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4

These chains do not work:
* 2 -> 3 (need to start at 1)
* 1 -> 4 -> 2 -> 3 (stops after 4 as the highest)
* 1a -> 2, 1b -> 2 (only 1a and 2 work, 1b is not used)

==Moving landholders==

It may happen that a land-holder no longer lives at the site which they are the landholder of, specifically when the current landholder dies, leaving the title to an heir living somewhere else.

To prevent this from happening, you can make their succession from heir and make sure that their kids live at your site. Or, you can make their position succeeded by another civ position, and make it so that this civ position is somehow available on your site. But if multiple of these positions exist, it cannot be guaranteed that a citizen of your fortress will inherit the title.

In world gen, a landholder lacking the DUTY_BOUND-token will also move to the site they like, according to legends mode.

==Replacement by a generic civ-position==

If a landholder is replaced by an AS_NEEDED non-landholder civ-position, then this will work: the current landholder loses that title upon settlement-elevation and gains that civ-title. However, the civ-title lacks the landholder-property of being attached to the land. It will not show the name of the settlement alongside the position's name. So no "minister of Shovelmounts"

If a landholder is replaced by a general AS_NEEDED civ-position, that itself is also replaced by a generic AS_NEEDED civ-position, then firstly the elevation is executed and also the unit gains that new position. However, he immediately loses it, because an AS_NEEDED position that is replaced by another position can be filled initially, but units wont be able to hold that title.

==Landholder with fixed number==

A landholder's position that has a fixed number will be created and filled directly when the civilisation is born, so this position slot is then not available for the regular landholder-mechanic and will also not be used. That landholder will thus not be attached to a settlement.

It doesn't matter if the landholder's position is connected to the regular landholder's-chain with the REPLACE_BY token.

==Responsibilities==

When given a certain [RESPONSIBILITY], a landholder may function as a regular civ-level noble. If the position has [TRADE] or [OUTPOST_NEGOTIATING] responsibilities, then the landholder functions both as a diplomat and as an actual land holder. A landholder with the [MILITARY_STRATEGY] responsibility will travel around taming creatures in world-gen, according to legends mode.

Besides that, the responsibilities work the same as with any other on-site living position-holder, civ or otherwise.

=Military=
==Squad management==
In the vanilla game, the Squad interface only becomes available after a militia commander has been appointed. Until then, the window displays:{{DFtext|You must appoint somebody first to create a squad.}}

What’s surprising is how this is determined internally. In the entity raw definition, '''only the last two positions that include a [SQUAD] token are checked''' to decide whether the interface is accessible at all. As a result, if your hierarchy defines commanders A through E, appointing '''Commander D or E''' unlocks squad formation, while appointing A–C does nothing.

In other words, squad availability is not tied to ''having a militia commander'', but to ''which specific positions happen to be last in the raw list''—a notably hacky implementation.

These 'last two' are always the last two '''available positions.''' So if they get [REPLACED_BY] or become available because of [REQUIRES_POPULATION], the game adapts to those.

==Squad assignment==

Squads can be assigned, even if the leader position has no holder.

A specific unit can only have one position associated with a squad. If it gains another 'squad holding position', it is unassigned from the first one. This does not work with a 0-squad, so only 1+squads are taken into consideration. This technique can possibly be used to distribute all positions equally among all citizens. It does however not work with election and assumption.

If a civ-level position is associated with a squad and it gets a site-level squad-holding position assigned, it loses the current civ-position.

Squads can get really messed up, if you make the position (or multiple) either elected or not-elected and not-appointed, then this can cause the game to assign multiple squads to the same unit. Automatic assignment and election does not take squads into account, but the nobles screen does. This can cause the positions to be cleared as the game figures out that they have more than one position, and immediately get elected or assumed again.

Positions that cannot have a squad-position:
* A site- or civ-position with a [SUCCESSION] token cannot be appointed a squad-holding-position. The other way around, however, does work. For example, if a site-position with a [SUCCESSION]-token is appointed to a unit that has already a position with [SQUAD]. But when that squad position is assigned to another unit, it cannot be assigned back.
* A position with [SUCCESSION] can also not be assigned as a '''member''' of a squad.
* A squad-holding position with a formed squad cannot be appointed to another squad holding position.

If a position has at least one squad member, it cannot be left vacant. First, the squad has to be disbanded, then the position may be cleared.

==0-squads==
A 0-Squad is defined in a position as [SQUAD:0:member:members]. It does not seem to do anything useful as of now.
* It cannot be used to activate the [[Squad|military interface]]
* It does not restrict the assignment of [SUCCESSION] positions.
* Assigning this position does not clear any previously held squad position.
* The [[Leader]] and [[Tactician]] skill are not marked as relevant skills and are not taken into account in elections.
* It cannot be formed as a squad.

=Further testing=
The following questions may need additional testing. Feel free to add or answer
* Everything regarding COMMANDING and army-structure
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175437.msg8331668#msg8331668]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=165213.msg8335682#msg8335682]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=174584.msg8026854#msg8026854]
* Stuff about the monarch, its arrival and its entourage.

=Oddities (Bugs)=
Almost everything on this page could be called an oddity. Because of their unexpected usability, some may also be referred to as “undocumented features.” Others, however, are simply odd and not particularly useful, yet I hesitate to call them “bugs.”
* If a certain threshold is reached that makes an elected position electable, and the triggering event that initiates this evaluation is an assumption, then the resulting assumption works partially as an election. It referred to in the messages as an election and the [REJECTED_CREATURE]-token is not applied, like it is with assumptions.

=Examples=

===The Founder===
The founder is a single dwarf, appointed at embark. They will be the only one ever to have this position and are not replaceable. When they lose their position some way, the position will not be assumed by another dwarf.
{{gamedata|title=The Founder|
[POSITION:THE_FOUNDER]
[NAME:the founder:founders]
[NUMBER:1]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[REJECTED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:THE_FOUNDER] - not unassignable, also cannot be assigned to a [SQUAD] position.
[PRECEDENCE:200]
Non APPOINTED_BY
Non ELECTED
Optional: Add responsibilities to make the game select a unit with certain skills.
}}
===Marriage bar===
Dwarven matrons are held in great honour. Upon marriage, a female dwarf is no longer expected to perform menial labour. All dwarven males hold this position by default, granting their spouses exemption from menial work.

The position becomes available with the arrival of the first migrants; otherwise, on embark, it would be assumed by females. Its succession rule is non-functional, but this prevents the player from unassigning the position. A squad size of 1 and the succession rules together prevent a unit from assuming the position more than once.

With precedence set to NONE, the position name is hidden, while LAND_NAME remains visible on the nobles screen. All married females receive the suffix “, Mrs.” and are marked as Nobles.

The practical usefulness of this position is debatable, but it serves as a clear demonstration of several mechanics.
{{gamedata|title=Mrs. Urist|

[POSITION:MRS_URIST]
[NUMBER:300]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:MALE]
Not APPOINTED_BY
Not ELECTED
[LAND_NAME:Dwarven male]
[NAME:dwarven male:dwarven male]
[PRECEDENCE:NONE]
[SPOUSE_FEMALE:, Mrs.:spouses]
[MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION_SPOUSE]
[REQUIRES_POPULATION:8]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:MONARCH]
[SQUAD:1:member:members]
}}
===The Archduke===
The archduke is the leader of the civilization, but exists only from landholder 4-level. Until then, its position remains vacant. When a settlement is elevated to tier 4 (grand duke), the grand duke can appoint the ruler of the civilisation, the archduke. Because of 'Premature Succession', they themself inherit that position immediately, but only when in fortress mode. Its heir then becomes grand duke.
{{gamedata|title=The Archduke| no POSITION:MONARCH or other PRECEDENCE:1

[POSITION:THE_ARCHDUKE]
[NAME:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_MALE:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:archduchess:archduchesses]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[NUMBER:1]
[PRECEDENCE:1]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[APPOINTED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]
(add additional monarch-stuff, like spouse name, demands etc.)

[POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[NAME:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_MALE:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:grand duchess:grand duchesses]
[NUMBER:AS_NEEDED]
[LAND_HOLDER:4]
// Optional ...
[PRECEDENCE:19]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_MAKING]
[RESPONSIBILITY:RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]
[SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]
[APPOINTED_BY:THE_ARCHDUKE]
(add additional landholder-stuff)

!!add to [POSITION:DUKE]
[REPLACED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]

}}
{{Category|Modding}}
{{Category|Entities}}
{{Category|Guides}}

Underworld

2026-04-29T09:27:26Z

Silverwing235: /* Details */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}} Caution: This article contains '''HFS''' (Hidden Fun Stuff). Reader discretion is advised.
{{spoiler}}
[[File:V50 underworld.png|thumb|right|400px|A portion of the Underworld. The large pink & black areas are eerie glowing pits, which go all the way to the lowest z-level in the map. Demons can be seen wandering through it.]]
:''"Hidden fun stuff", "HFS" and "eerie glowing pit" redirects here. For other hidden content in the game, see [[easter eggs]].''

The '''Underworld''' is the absolute bottom of the world, located below the [[semi-molten rock]] reached by digging under the [[magma sea]] and breaching a hollow [[raw adamantine]] vein. Breaching it serves as the end-game of [[dwarf fortress mode]] for those unfortunate or [[Stupid dwarf trick|daring enough]] to do so.

== Details ==

[[File:V50 adamantine spire.png|thumb|right|400px|A cross section of a typical adamantine spire you will need to mine through in order to reach the underworld. Beware that the single empty tiles are likely to contain fun surprises!]]
The Underworld takes the form of a massive open cavern of [[slade]], dotted with giant, bottomless eerie glowing pits ({{Tile|*|4:0:1}}) which will instantly kill anything that falls into them (unless [[floor]]s are constructed over them). It is inhabited by [[demon]]s who, when first encountered, will immediately rush to the nearest exit they can find, typically leading to overwhelming amounts of [[fun]]. The initial demon invasion may reach well over a hundred attackers, sometimes leading to [[Frames per second|FPS death]] before they even reach the fortress itself.

The Underworld expands out in all directions without bound, with a height varying between 1-4 [[z-level]]s. Its rough floor slopes up and down, making it possible to walk around and explore should you get an [[Adventurer mode|adventurer]] down there. If you dig down through a hollow adamantine pillar, but had previously blocked off the particular hallway with a drawbridge and raise it, you can discover the location of all adamantine on the map with no negatives.

Demons spawn on the edges of the Underworld much like animals do on the surface; demons thus spawned will typically rush towards your fortress in order to destroy buildings, as they are [[building destroyers]]. Do note that at the moment building destroyers are bugged and will get stuck when trying to destroy locked doors. It is yet unclear whether the number of demons is finite; in information exported from the legends screen, the population of demonic species is listed as "unnumbered", a descriptor usually reserved for [[ant]]s, [[worm]]s, and other omnipresent [[vermin]]. Clusters of [[web]]s can be found scattered across the Underworld's surface, marking the presence of demons able to spew webs as a form of combat. In worlds [[Advanced world generation|generated]] without demons, the Underworld is empty and [[goblin]]s are not present either, but goblins can still appear through historical deep-dig disasters.

If not properly prepared, breaching into the Underworld can wipe out the entire fortress in seconds - it will be burned to ashes, and levers will often be useless for blocking them off through bridges, because those demons are extremely fast.

When digging through the adamantine spire, there is a mixture of 7/7 squares of magma and water, obsidian, high-quality gems, and raw adamantine. Intermingled with this are single-tile empty squares, which can contain four different types of things:

# An artifact made with [[divine metal]]. "Deep within this strange place, we've uncovered what must be a treasure of the gods!"
# A gout of flame which shoots in a random direction - if it strikes the miner, they will be set on fire. Otherwise, it will harmlessly strike a wall nearby, and burn out shortly. "We checked that stone for heat! What devilry is this?!"
# A single [[demon]]: "Something evil is emerging from this newly exposed pocket!" '''or''' "Some ancient horror was encased here, until now!"
# A single [[angel]]: "We have unleashed the echo of a forgotten divine retribution!" '''or''' "Apocalypse! We are being judged by the gods!" If you dig out both of these at the same time, they will fight each other.

== Names ==

Upon first discovery, the place is referred to as an ''eerie cavern''. Nearly all other references in the game, including dialogues and descriptions, call it ''Underworld'' or ''underworld''.

'''Hell''' is a popular alternative name among DF players due to its hellish overtones, but it is rarely referred to as such in-game. ''Hell'' is included in the game's [[language]]s, and generated names for people, sites, regions, etc., can contain the word ''hell''. When the Underworld and its contents are spoken of in the context of spoilers, players frequently use the term "'''Hidden Fun Stuff'''" ('''HFS''') or the "'''circus'''" (with demons nicknamed "clowns").

==World generation==

In world generation, two kinds of gates to the underworld can be created: a [[deity]] may thrust an [[underworld spire]] as part of their ritual to bring a unique demon into the world, and [[goblin]] civilizations will be built around them; or a dwarven civilization may dig too deep and inadvertently breach into the underworld, and the civilization is (abstractly) taken over by goblins. Only the first kind leads to an actual physical passage into the underworld, and every such goblin civilization will contain one.

== Reaching the Underworld ==
===Fortress mode===

[[File:Underworld.png|thumb|right|390px|Not the best vacationing spot.]]
Upon digging sufficiently deep (usually z-level ~160, but it can vary wildly) you will find [[Magma sea|huge magma lakes]]. These are surrounded by [[semi-molten rock]] which cannot be cleared by digging, but seems otherwise stable. Eventually, you will reach a layer which contains nothing but molten rock and little to no possibilities to pass. You can reach the critical layer by digging through solid rock which gets rarer the deeper you dig. In fortress mode, there are two ways through the impassable layer:

'''Digging through an adamantine vein:''' [[Raw adamantine]] veins are shaped like vertical tubes and breach through any layer of semi-molten rock, right down into the Underworld. The lower layers of the vein are often hollow and act as a tube, leading straight to your doom. Breaching into the hollow center of a vein has the same effect as breaching into the Underworld, so beware. You could easily dig around the hollow core provided you knew where it was, but every vein's hollow center is located at a different height - the risk is all part of the [[fun]]. Adamantine veins always seem to end in mid-air, so once you breach the final layer, you will face a horde of demons which hovers directly below your feet.

'''Channeling through semi molten rock:''' It is possible to channel into semi-molten rock (and, to a lesser extent, slade) from above, as long as the tile below is not yet discovered. In older versions, you had to remove the magma-flow and ramps in a complicated procedure that killed one dwarf per level, but now it is possible to channel directly into the underworld without losing a dwarf, though the miner tapping it will likely get killed by demons or drop into an eerie glowing pit. The difference is that, in older versions, the miner was placed onto the magma flow, but now they are placed under the magma flow, and can channel on.

* Start one or more levels above the lowest rock layer above the magma flow. (this is important, as the miner must fall below the magma flow)
* designate channels (d-h) from here down to the bottom of the map.
* The miner will first generate a downward ramp into the rock. Now build a hatch above this ramp.
* The miner walks down this ramp, and channels into the semi-molten rock, as the game only sees the granite upward slope.
* Now, the miner is trapped below a magma flow (floor) and surrounded by semi molten rock. They will proceed to channel down until they reach the underworld, leaving magma flow tiles above them, as well as channel one level into slade. (if they survive long enough)
* You now have a chute - blocked by magma flow floors - into the underworld. By constructing up/down stairways, you can build a stairway into the underworld (the magma flow is removed in that process).
* If the site has no adamantine (otherwise you probably wouldn't do that), no demons will be generated (except the "wildlife"-demons), and you might even be able to save the miner, if you build the stairway before he starves to death.
* As both magma-free pillars and eerie glowing pits are placed in the corners of embark tiles, the miner will likely fall into an eerie glowing pit - use zones ({{K|i}}) to find solid slade floor and prevent this from happening.

[[File:eerie_cavern.png|thumb|405px|Announcement upon revealing the Underworld]]

Regardless of the method of breaching, you will receive an announcement upon piercing the Underworld. One step later, you will get a second announcement: '''''"Horrifying screams come from the darkness below!"''''' At this point, a ''massive'' number of demons will be spawned - though the number is not fixed, the demons will likely fill many pages on the Units screen. You'd do well to prepare for the worst.

===Adventure mode===

In adventure mode, one may find huge slade [[underworld spire]]s built as gateways to the Underworld. Only the sites that a unique demon rose up from will have an opening into the Underworld. The lowermost levels of these structures indeed lead directly into the Underworld, with several demons waiting below. Due to the underworld spire more or less having to reach the very bottom of the world, the player almost always has to go down at least over a hundred z-levels. Combined with the FPS drop that comes with being near a goblin civilization due to all the activity, it may take a while.

Alternatively, adventurers may enter through player made fortresses that have opened a way into the Underworld. Generated Dwarven sites do not enter the Underworld, even if they have allegedly breached into an eerie cavern during world generation, and will terminate at the top of the magma sea.

Be warned that demons make for highly dangerous opponents for an adventurer: they are big, fast, strong, don't feel pain, don't get stunned or exhausted, and unless you get lucky and one is generated as being composed of something like salt, they frequently can take quite a bit of punishment, especially if they're made of a metal. Finally, like Titans/Forgotten Beasts demons possess a procedurally generated special attack that may or may not easily ruin your day.

==== Starting Adventure mode in the Underworld ====
First, you need to build a [[camp]] and [[claim]] it for yourself. This will turn you into a lord, and make the camp into a proper site to which you will be able to recruit and assign [[hearthpeople]] to.

Then, if you make a zone inside your camp several levels down, assign hearthpeople to that zone, and retire and unretire them, you may very well end up starting the game in the Underworld. In fact, any adventurer with a background of being a hearthperson to that site may start in the Underworld as well.

== Invading the Underworld ==
Assuming you survive the initial onslaught, you may then proceed to explore the newly discovered land. The most impressive example of this feat is recorded by Sethatos in [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.msg6814181#msg6814181 Archcrystal]. Dwarves of the highest skill are recommended.

Note that the Underworld is completely devoid of useful resources, as most demons are sentient and cannot be [[butcher]]ed, there are no [[plant]]s, [[water]], [[soil]] or [[ore]]s, and the unique [[slade]] rock the Underworld is made out of cannot be mined. The only reason one would have to invade the Underworld is pure bragging rights.

{{D for Dwarf}}

== After Settling In ==
For training purposes, the Underworld is a perfect place for a Dwarven Boot Camp. Even if a soldier dies in the battle for hell, you can track down their sorry dwarven butts, and drag them out of the eerie glowing pit... And right back to boot camp! Side effects of Underworld Boot Camp include: Mental trauma; repeated cases of death; losing the will to live; [[fun]].

{{Translation
| dwarven = Arôloram
| elvish = Tariteyo
| goblin = Sumspabuzong
| human = Ngironra
}}

{{World}}
[[Category:Spoilers]]
{{Category|HFS}}

Demon

2026-04-29T09:05:50Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits - they are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population (specified as 5-10 in the raws) appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, fire-breath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control the flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door - the ones that can't will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in your [[stupid dwarf trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Stupid dwarf trick

2026-04-28T21:17:20Z

Silverwing235: /* Danger room */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and/or effort. They may provide a practical benefit, but are frequently done for the sake of doing them; they exist primarily as a [[challenge]] for experienced players.

==Adventure mode fortress==


Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor; possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol. This means an alarm clock is not impossible if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. Even less if using sprites. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount (and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to medium. If the chamber containing the altar is consecrated as a [[temple]], dwarves will go there to pray, and may gain additional happy thoughts for admiring the altar's materials and craftsdwarfship.

*Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
**MegaSacrificialBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Anthill==
Build your fortresses hallways and rooms on the same Z-axis. Building rooms with depth is fine, as long as their west/east walls are on the same Z-coordinate. All the walls on the Z-coordinate should be glass. Hollow out the opposite section so that the area beside the glass is empty. Build viewing platforms in the hollowed-out space.
'''Difficulty''' High. The limited space is a huge restraint, and caverns are a huge issue.

'''Usefulness''' Very low, although intruders can be forced to climb the viewing area to enter, letting marksdwarves pick them off easily through fortifications.

*MirrorBonus: Instead of a viewing area, build a perfect replica of the fort.
*SuperDwarfGalaxyBonus: Make it horizontal instead of vertical.
**MegaBonus: Build it into the magma sea.

==Aqueduct power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]]. It is now very rare to find a powerful enough aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' High.

==Archaeological excavation==
A Fortress in the caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (e.g. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Variable. Carving a premade fort or building controlled access to caverns can potentially be useful for a Reclaim effort, effectively making the first wave dispoable setup so your would-be archologists to dig up and exploit their new home. The more Fun you leave behind, the harder it will be for your second wave to repurpose the place.

*Bonus: A museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves.
*Bonus: Create a save with your First Tribe fort collapsed/flooded/etc, for other users to explore. Leave them some Fun what-does-this-lever-do problems to solve.
*EncinoDwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice.
*FunBonus: Breach the HFS.
**MegaBonus: Do a cave in to the HFS after fighting it leaving multiple signs of battle in the fortress, to be dug by your modern dwarves.

==Artificial waterfall==
{{main|Waterfall}}
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==Ballista battery==
{{main|Ballista}}
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, add a little magma, and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
** StonksBonus: Rig a way for your bastion to transfer supplies to the outside world without exposing themselves to danger, so they can be somewhat useful to the rest of your fort before their inevitable downfall. Doubles as a way to restock the bastion with fresh supplies and/or bodies, or a way to let the apocalypse in a little at a time if your survivors get too comfortable.
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludge into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when sanitizing the main one and closes and sanitizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Boat==
In intermittently freezing biomes, [[ice]] may be used to create actual floating boats, submarines, or other floating objects/forts; as constructions built on top of ice do not collapse when the ice thaws.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Needs an intermittently freezing biome, construction is limited to frozen periods, and there's a substantial risk of flooding, drowning and being encased in ice.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Forts within boats are protected from invaders while the water is unfrozen, but they're also trapped within the confines of the boat.

Note: You'll probably want to limit your saves to the colder months.

* DwarfBonus: Have the dwarves live on the boat.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make miscreants/nobles walk the plank.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Bury your treasure on shore.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Have a pet [[kea]] for each of your dwarves.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build it on top of an ice tower.

==Bolt splitting operation==

## Note: no longer works due to climbing mechanics ##

One curious property of Dwarven physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the update that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] (or [[Divine metal]] if you don't have it; or [[Steel]] if you have neither) bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Another design resembles a tower where marksdwarves shoot from the top, with the following setup: (click then press '<' and '>' to go through different z-levels)
<diagram>
<frame type="level" level=0>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]<[%204][%185][#5:1]g[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 01
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=1>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]X[%204][%185][#7:1]O[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 02 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=2>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]X+[#3:1]/[#7:0].[%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%205][%188]

< 03 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=3>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187]+
[%186]X[%186].[%186]+
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188]+

< 04 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=4>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187].
[%186]X[%186].[%186].
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188].

< 05 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=5>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]>+[#6:1]@[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%188]

06 >
</frame>
</diagram>
The '@' is any number of marksdwarves standing on a down stair. You may want to use a defend burrow order to restrict them to that tile. The 'g' is a goblin or any other creature your marksdwarves will normally fire at upon encounter (pitted from 2 z-levels above). The 'O' is a well, which is suspected to be preventing dwarves from plunging in and starting brawling with the creature. Marksdwarves will be able to see the goblin or whatever creature below and will loose all bolts in their quivers on them. Curiously, nearly all the bolts will fail to cross the bend in the middle and will fall onto the tile '/' where they can be collected. This disregards crossbow and archery skills and the only difference they make is the speed at which the bolts are split. This design has the advantage of taking less space and being easier to set up, however it is reported that sometimes the dwarves will not miss some of the bolts. If you are only stationing one marksdwarf in the tower, stationing another one may help the first one miss all of his bolts, even after the newly added one is then removed. Sometimes dwarves will spam job cancellation on the bolt collection level, and it is also reported that sometimes some dwarves will start firing when they are on the bolt collection level. In such cases you may want to seal the collection level off and open it once in a while to retrieve the bolts.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite metal|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the dam (release the river!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh maniacally.

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that raises under its victims' feet, flinging enemies away.

Bridges don't fling creatures in any specific direction, apart from "up". So it's more of a spring-board than a catapult. If there's a lot of open space above the bridge, creatures can get flung very high - ten z-levels and more - and take appropriate falling damage. Most of them will land atop the bridge, and bringing the same bridge down will simply crush them.

'''Difficulty:''' Fairly easy. Getting the timing right promises to be the biggest challenge.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

===Cat-a-pult===
Essentially a Bridge-a-pult with specific ammo.

'''Difficulty''': Very easy, given that you have live cats in your fortress.

'''Usefulness''': Can be used as a way to stop a [[catsplosion]] if used with male cats. [[Unfortunate accident|Cats can also be replaced with elite citizens of your fortress.]] 

==Corpse processing facility==
WARNING: The system can freely jam on any body parts, besides hands and heads, without killing undead.
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with an artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something more out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

NOTE: necromancer siege's corpses now drop clothes and gear.

==Crocodile farm==
They're a thing in real life, and you can make them a thing in-game too! Use cage traps to capture multiple breeding pairs of [[alligator]]s, [[cave crocodile]]s or [[saltwater crocodile]]s, [[Animal trainer|train]] them, then create an area to store them with [[nest box]]es. Breed them so you have more crocodilians to keep laying eggs, rinse and repeat.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, somewhat dependent on RNG - you need to find someplace with available crocs, you want said crocs to actually spawn and you want said crocs to actually get caught in the traps. <s>May</s> Will also lead to an explosive and FPS-shattering [[Catsplosion#Crocsplosion|crocsplosion]] sooner or later.

'''Usefulness:''' Very high, you'll never have to worry about food again simply from cooking the eggs, and that's not counting butchering the crocs when they're adults.

*Bonus: Have alligators, cave crocs and saltwater crocs '''all''' present in the farm.
*SwampBonus: Have your croc farm submerged in anywhere between 1/7 to 3/7 [[water]]. You gotta keep your crocs healthy and wet! But make sure not to submerge the nest boxes!
*SavageBonus: Have [[giant alligator]]s or/and [[giant saltwater crocodile]]s as part of your farm.
**Archcrystal bonus: Replace the crocs with [[Hydras]]. Keep them in a usually unseen location, as any Urist McFoolhardy walking by will try to attack them on sight.
*TrainerBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert alligator/cave croc/saltwater croc trainers.
**SteveIrwinBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert trainers of all croc species.
*HungryHungryCrocBonus: Build your farm in such a way that [[siege]]s have to go through it to reach your fortress.
*UltraCrocBonus: Have [[Alligator man|alligator men]] or/and [[Saltwater crocodile man|saltwater crocodile men]] inhabiting your fortress and helping train the croc farm.
**UltraArmokCrocBonus: Have an entire fortress of croc men handling a croc farm. You're dwarves in spirit.

==Dam==
{{main|Dam}}
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.)

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==Danger room==
{{main|Danger room}}
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': Low. While this used to be a very effective training method, it's quite deadly now, even for militiadwarves. They also wear down your dwarves' armor and shields quickly, making them harmful for your long-term survival, even if your militiadwarves manage to survive the room itself.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*UltraDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers, or get into accidents. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to [[quantum stockpile]] a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, toys, clothing, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like hauling, crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in miscellaneous professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (Dorfanage) (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies, depending on the bonuses built. With v50, children are a lot easier to mentally scar for life, making them prone to fell moods and tantrums, so having a safe form of daycare allows them to grow up into adults whose stress levels are usually easier to manage

*SchoolBonus: Make the daycare a guild hall, and add a highly skilled dwarf and another adult to the burrow. The two will give demonstrations that the kids will occasionally watch, gaining experience in a profession of your choice
*OlympicBonus: Build a swimming pool of 4/7 between critical parts of the daycare, so the kids have to go through the water for their everyday tasks, gaining swimming skill and associated stats.
*ChildSoldierBonus: Make the daycare a barracks, and have your crack squad of dwarves spar and demonstrate there to train up the military skills of your dwarven children
*HighSchoolBonus: All of the above, and make [[nobles]] and unskilled migrants stay there to learn.

==Doberman bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus: Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus: Use one (or more!) of the following list: [[dragon]]s, [[bronze colossus]]es, [[forgotten beast]]s (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or [[Hidden Fun Stuff|Clowns of Hidden Funland]].

==Drophole==
Imagine an execution tower, for rocks and pants. It's nothing but a very deep 1x1 up-down staircase for express service to the depths. Designate a garbage dump beside the top and dwarves will pitch anything marked for [[Dumping]] into it.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds, there's always snags along the way. Surprise caverns can cost you miners and tools. Hitting water can be vexing. Dumping and reclaiming things can be a chore. It may serve as an unintended highway for Fun of any liquid or airborne variety

'''Usefulness:''' It's '''far''' easier to drop ore 100 z-levels to the magma sea than carry it. You can use this to transfer items between burrows.

*Bonus: Minecarts can make this semi-automatic, fed from a stockpile.

==Drowning chamber==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==Dwarfputer complex==
{{main|Computing}}
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers (''bugs, perhaps?'') enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven apartment complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to [[Losing|fun]] by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc.) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaOrwellBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*Bonus: Punch a large shaft through a multi-level aquifer (hint: punch through the aquifer from below).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self-sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the [[Demon|clowns]] while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven disco ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven labor camp (aka Dwalag)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

Bonus: Also use nether-cap wood to build the walls, floor, ceiling, and door.

Bonus: While we are at it make all your coffins out of it. 'Cryogenically' freeze those corpses!

==Dwarven machine gun==
Build a high fire rate, minecart firing machine gun. Must be fully automatic, capable of reloading itself, and should not jam due to minecarts being disrupted by collisions or derailments.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on fire rate, reload downtime, and whether or not minecarts are filled with [[magma]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. A sophisticated minecart trap can keep out even the most persistent invaders.

*Bonus: Automatically reload minecarts with [[magma]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Integrate the trap with a dwarfputer so that it can automatically send minecarts to where they are needed most.

==Elephant man armor factory==
[[Elephant man]] are incredibly strong in combat — both in [[Dwarf fortress mode|Fortress]] and [[Adventurer mode|Adventurer]] modes. However, they can't put on normal-sized [[Armor]] — and therefore, walk around in crappy starting armor at best, naked at worst. We'll put [[Elephant man]] to make [[Armor]] — and another [[Elephant man]] for [[Clothes]].

'''Difficulty:''' Easy. Depends on amount of [[Elephant man]] spawning in the world.

'''Usefulness:''' Your [[Elephant man]] [[Military|super-soldiers]] are now properly armored. Considering their size, strength, and possibly training, they are now borderline-invulnerable. Also, you have enough armor complects for your [[Elephant man]] [[Adventurer mode|Adventurers]].

==Emergency destruct stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Send prisoners straight to the [[HFS]]. If some mod makes them survive, the [[Clown]]s will have their way with them. May make retrieving items difficult, however.

==Flak==
If flying enemies circumventing your walls and causing mayhem inside your fortress is a problem, don't use marksdwarves, just make some flak! Simply cover a series of drawbridges in rocks, and when fliers come by pull the lever.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Contrary to the description, marksdwarves are more accurate, versatile, and just better. However, if you manage to hit something with this, there's a large chance of it getting stunned and crashing to the ground. Remember, what goes up must come down, wear your helmet Urist!

*Bonus: Use minecarts and pressure plates to make it fully automatic.
*SuperBonus: Make it closer to real world flak by using burning lignite bins.
*EfficiencyBonus: Use goblins as ammo
*AlternateBonus: Instead of drawbridges and stone, use jets of water to stun flyers, and then release the dogs. Alternatively, burn them in midair with lava.
*FunBonus: Use the above method with lava, except use the lava as a propellent to throw the circus at the local crow population.
*ArmokBonus: Use all of the above to emulate what happens when you drift into American airspace.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a fair bit of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. [[Dragonfire]] can kill almost anything, but will be blocked by a [[shield]] greater than 99% of the time. Adding a combustible floor (such as a paved [[lignite]] [[road]]) will significantly increase lethality for shield-toting targets. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications may melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; ensuring the bridge center tile isn't near the fire, or building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[divine metal]] (or [[slade]]) will make them immune to the fire. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer can easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot, if line-of-sight access is available.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the hidden fun stuff and use them.

==Flood the world==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate unless you sink the world below water level (river or ocean).

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==Gladiator arena==
{{main|Live training}}
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages. Keep in mind that you can't actually make your dwarves "watch" the battles like an actual gladiator arena, as civilians will flee in fear at the sight of non-restrained hostile creatures, even if they're in a pit and not actively attacking them.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*DwarfBonus: Winners also get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Grazer reanimation facility==
Just as stables, but without grass, and on a reanimating biome. Pasture every grazer in a separate box, and build [[cage trap]]s to recapture the animal after it joins [[undead|the Dark Side]]. Make sure to forbid the area after you finish setting things up, because you don't want your dwarves getting <s>killed</s> caught instead.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You always get some grazing animals to start with.

'''Usefulness:''' You get a decent supply of zombies to use in your [[trap design|cunning traps]]. Depending on your style of play, this may prove to be worth the effort.

* DwarfBonus: Use war [[elephant]]s, or any other giant {{catlink|Grazer|grazing animal}} you <s>bought</s> seized from elves.
** MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant elephant]]s.
*** BoatMurderedBonus: Release them all simultaneously to challenge your militia/play out a [[fun|!fun!]] scenario for your fort.
* MenagerieBonus: Create a zoo using only undead grazers.
** DwarvenMenagerieBonus: Combine this with the [[#Zombie_thunderdome|Zombie Thunderdome]] and have a rotation of undead cows fighting in the arena only to be re-caged when they try to leave.
*** ChampionBonus: Give each grazer rooming in the zoo according to their kills, with the champion having the most luxurious room.
**** AltarBonus: Turn the champion's room into an [[#Altar_of_Armok|Altar of Armok]].
**** FreedomBonus: Let the champion and higher-ranking zombies roam freely in their rooms, having to be re-captured for each battle.
***** !FreedomBonus!: Release the champion into your fort.
* HolyGrailBonus: Use white [[bunny|bunnies]].

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksdwarfs handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.
*MegaHumanBonusPlus: Designate multiple dumping spots into the lava moat.
*SurfaceDwellerBonus: Get the stone for your constructions entirely from open-pit quarries, i.e. by c[h]annelling instead of [d]igging.
*MegaSurfaceDwellerBonus: Never use picks at all, all stone and metal must come from caravans or embark.
*WhereTheBeardedLadiesAtBonus: Enforce as many <s>pointless</s> quaint human quirks as feasible, for instance: nominating officials per wealth/popularity/relationships instead of merit and suitedness, coddling Nobles, burrowing farmers, miners, brewers, craftsdwarves and other backbones of society into the most tattered ridings, enforcing a specific religion upon the populace, and so forth.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], or [[gold]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

* BabelBonus: Use [[DFHack]]'s <code>infiniteSky</code> and build to the heavens themselves.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' [[Cave-in|Negative]]. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*YouHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Single-lever emergency lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build the same number of bridges (that raise!) as your stairway is tall on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.
*MegaArmokEntombment<s>'''Bait&Switch'''</s>Diplomatic+Bonus: Set the highest level up on another switch, with a particularly <s>'''demanding and annoying noble'''</s> skilled diplomatic representative is waiting at the very bottom to <s>'''lure'''</s> invite them all down for a nice meal on <s>'''his flesh'''</s> the stockpile of food and booze that's keep him ever so happy. Then you can wait for the entire army to flow into the stairwell before flipping the switches. Don't forget to carve a statue out of the block of the noble! What noble doesn't want their grand <s>'''sacrificial defense'''</s> diplomatic skills to be immortalized in volcanic glass?
**UltraArmokBonus: Defeat all your invasions this way, and build a temple to Armok full of the once noble, now obsidian statues, as well as only the highest of quality (and value) memorial slabs.

==Magma Lock System==
This system is a little more complicated than the LEL system described above, and requires that you space out all of your floors so that there's a 'plumbing floor' between each level. From there you set up tons and tons of magma proof floodgates and hatches. Each 'area' you wish to be self-contained from one another needs at least a 3x2 hallway separating it from the other areas. 4 of these will contain flood gates, and the other two must remain bare. Above one of the two bare points you need to have a hollowed out space, and connecting into it from one side you need to have a hatch leading to your water plumbing system, to the other, a hatch to your lava plumbing system. You need two levers for controlling this, one lever is connected to all of the lower floodgates, the other to the upper floodgates. Pull the first hatch to lock in the flood gates just in case, the second to the upper flood gates to begin pouring in water and magma and have them make obsidian filling the entire hallway, sterilizing it of literally anything that could have contaminated it. You do this instead of hatches so they'll drop in properly and mix with no risk of only one side or the other of the hallway turning to obsidian and resulting in a dangerous leak. Throw the first switch again to open up the floodgates and begin mining to access the old chambers again. Whatever was invading your fortress, whether plague, necromancer, clowns, or forgotten beast, will be safely locked away, and unable to break back out whether or not it possesses building destroyer or not. Then you just have to wait for your miners to dig their way out. You can simply avoid the chambers that still have FUN inside, and any the purity of magma and obsidian will have utterly obliterated any traces of contaminants between containment zones.

'''Difficulty''': Medium to High. While not dealing with anything overtly hostile, this process more or less demands that you plan your fortress from the start for this specific system and deal with lots and lots of moving parts, mechanisms, and similar, plus the power necessary to pump magma and water into this network in a timely manner.. If you screw up part of it then it's very easy to end up with your entire fortress flooded with water or magma. Build it on small and give it a test run then expand it once you've gotten the process working for a single chamber, such as the chamber leading to your cavern layer.

'''Usefulness''': High. Depending on how you prepare things (See the bonuses below) the necessary set up for all of this will result in a network of magma and water pipes in every single level of your fortress, powering forges, wells, baths, showers, and defenses of all sorts. Then when things are at their worst, throw a switch and barring one or two (or many depending on how many dwarves are transitioning between containment areas) horribly swift deaths, your entire fortress is safe from any possible threats. You can also prepare chambers ahead of time for other activities and use this to trap enemies in them for later usage.

*DwarfBonus: Put a stockpile of food, drink, and pickaxes in each containment area.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Put a lever in every zone connected just to their own, so your dwarves can heroically seal off an entire section by themselves if necessary.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Extend the hallways, and make the water half of them use grates and constant water falls to give good thoughts while traversing between zones. Change up your levers to shut off the water for when digging begins again.

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Filodorima: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].
*MemorialBonus: Capture the Goblin King and make him fight the Minotaur.

==Magma chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma cannon==
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma access early==
ASAP from embark, dig down to the magma. 
Make 2 magma proof pumps, 
make a small (5x5?) room that you can pump magma into and out of and 
make a stockpile for only iron & steel minecarts in the room. 
Be sure to make enough minecarts to fill the room. 
Once the room is full of minecarts, seal room and pump it full of magma. 
Then pump the magma out. 
Delete the stockpile. 
Make a new stockpile near your forge/smelt/glass/kiln area. 
Haul minecarts by hand (or magma proof wheelbarrow). 
Use tracks and stops to dump 4 deep magma into shallow pits. 
2 minecart loads per pit. 

'''Difficulty:''' Low. 
'''Usefulness:''' Very High. 
*Bonus: !!Magma Economy By Autumn!!
*ObsidianBonus: Instead of pumping the magma out, drain water from a nearby lake or aquifer cistern onto it to turn it into obsidian. Carve out the minecarts, magma safely still inside, and enjoy the extra obsidian you have. Watch out not to flood the fortress!

==Magma highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with exactly the same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma sea colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==<s>Magma</s> Lava sprinkler==
Build a twisting <s>magma</s> lava aqueduct above the entrance to your fortress. Leave a few thin (diagonal) holes in it, so that lava can seep out of it. When invaders arrive, pump magma into the sprinkler. Diagonal holes will limit the rate at which the fluid flows out of them, ensuring a nice steady lava rain rather than a big wave.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Similar to magma canon, except with a bit more engineering, but less pumps and smaller reservoir needed (due to less magma being required for the same effect).

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Like magma cannon it can obliterate a siege, but this time you can have a bit more control over how it happens. Lava rain doesn't depend on ground structure (your entrance doesn't need to be in a valley for it to work well) and leaves less magma to evaporate.

*Bonus: Cover the holes with floodgates or hatches and keep the lavaduct filled with lava rather than filling it only when using it.
*Bonus+1: Build the lavaduct in such a way that it starts raining on the outermost part of the area first, then goes inwards, to ensure that invaders who start burning can't escape.

==Mass cage recycling system==
{{main|Mass pitting}}
Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==Mega/Water drowning trap-thing==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Minecart spiral==
Build a giant spiral [[Minecart#Impulse ramps|minecart impulse ramp]] all the way from the [[magma sea]] to the surface. You can use it to transport ores to the [[magma smelter|magma smelters]] at the bottom from [[sedimentary layer|sedimentary layers]] near the surface. You can build [[statues]] in it to prevent dwarves from walking in and [[fun|dying]].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium-High. You will most likely have to use [[macros]]. Additionally, when crossing caverns you will have to [[construct]] minecart ramps which can be tedious.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. It depends on how tall your map is and how much ores you consume.

*TrapBonus: Use [[bridge|drawbridge]] to guide invaders to the spiral, then [[screw pump|pump]] water into it and drown them.
**BetterTrapBonus: Make it [[magma]] instead.
*SuperBonus: Make the tower go all the way to the highest [[Z-axis|Z level]].
**ArmokBonus: Make it go through the magma sea, and [[HFS|further below]].
*Bonus: At the top, set up a system where dwarves can guide minecarts to different vertical shafts where the will fall to different Z levels, for loading. Then, the minecarts fall further down to the smelters, where the empty minecarts are sent back up for loading.
**MegaBonus: Divide your dwarves into two separate [[burrows]] connected only by the minecart spiral and the shaft. The higher burrow is in charge of mining, growing food, and operating the minecart system, and the lower burrow is in charge of smelting ores and making crafts.
***HyperMegaBonus: Close off all stairs and add a minecart loading and unloading station at every inhabited z level. All vertical transport of goods should be done via minecarts only. Also, dwarves are not allowed in minecarts.
****UltraSuperBonus: Build a minecart loading and unloading station at every Z level, even the uninhabited ones you never use.

==Mist generator==

Using whatever screw-pump-statue contraption your dwarves can muster up, create an endless mist-generating machine which will hopefully not obliterate your [[Frames_per_second|FPS]].

'''Difficulty:''' Extremely easy. You will only need a basic understanding of screwpumps and gear assemblies. However, you can scale it to any size or level of complexity. The [[Mist|mist page]] has a handy guide.

'''Usefulness:''' Borderline cheating. Keeps your dwarves in a state of constant euphoria. Mist does funny things to a dwarf's mind. Also a one-up from artificial waterfalls as they only need to travel a single Z level, (hopefully) reducing the FPS strain.
*Bonus: Build an absolutely horrible fortress with as much [[miasma]] and [[hateable]] vermin that you can fit in one bunker. Keep your dwarves sane with the power of Mist™ alone.
**FUNbonus: Build it in a semi-freezing climate instead. Watch as winter rolls by and your dwarves are deprived of their only source of joy. [[Fun]] will surely ensue.

==Monumental statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*BestWayToGetRidOfStoneBonus: Make one for every dead dwarf.
**UberTombBonus: Use the statue as a tomb and put their coffins in it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

*Bonus: Use the Moses effect to make doors from water, which are opened/closed using a lever.
*TechBonus: Automatize the doors so that they open (only!) when a dwarf is near.

==Never-ending shower==
{{main|Waterfall}}
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==Nuclear Fallout Bunker==
Build a mini fortress with everything your dwarves could need deep underground. Stock it with enough food, drinks, and materials to last your small band of survivors for years or alternatively make it self-sufficient with its own food production. Lastly, add a bridge that allows you to seal off the bunker from the rest of the world.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy-Medium depending on the relative luxury of the bunker and how many dwarves you intend to shelter from the apocalypse.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your fort is threatened by some particularly nasty disaster (be it zombie goblin horde or Bronze Colossus) simply rush your best and brightest dwarves down to the Nuclear Fallout Bunker and raise the bridge, sealing it off from the rest of the world.
*MutallyAssuredDestructionBonus: Have a self-destruct lever in the bunker that is pulled once everyone is safely inside.

==Obsidian factory==
{{main|Obsidian farming}}
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber, a drowning chamber and even an obsidianizing chamber that can kill any creature that gets in (except [[ghost]]s and possibly [[vermin]]).

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

* Bonus: Link the spikes to a lever so you can proceed to make swiss cheese of whatever didn't die from the fall.

==Pixel art stockpiles==
Arrange several stockpiles of similar items of different colors (gems work well for this) so the different colors make some sort of picture. Don't forget to set "max bins" to 0 on all the stockpiles so you can actually see the items!

It's probably also a good idea to forbid the items once they're in place, to prevent them from being moved later (and allow you to remove the stockpiles if you want.)

'''Difficulty:''' Medium; only tricky parts are (potentially) finding enough items of different colors, and keeping track of which colors are where before the hauling is done.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative

==Pressure washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and instantly submerges anything in the way of the flow. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though it won't flow out nearly as quickly).

==Quantum Blizzard Cannon==

Do you need to kill something? Is atom-smashing no longer a viable option? Do you wish to bring glory to Armok? Do not fear, the QBC is here! By creating individual stops to fill minecarts with projectiles of your choosing, then loading up to 12 filled minecarts into a final “Launcher” minecart (using a stop designated to fill the "launcher" with minecarts), you can effectively fire as many items as you would like at your foe using a standard minecart shotgun. It is also possible to fill this with fluids, to great effect (and risk of crashing the game). This can often have interesting effects because hitting a goblin with 996 bars of lead at extreme speeds is not good for the squishy bits. The cannon gains its name from its creator.

''' Difficulty:''' excessive, lots of time in menus and loading per shot, but really ((Fun))

''' Usefulness:''' medium to low. The same trick can be used to move large amounts of items via minecart, but ultimately the QBC is excessive for even the HFS.

==Redesign the fortress==
And when we say "redesign", we mean completely replanning and rebuilding the entire fortress, from scratch. Ever thought about a cool thing that you could add to your fortress, but can't because a critical area(such as the dining room, general-purpose stockpile, central workshop area etc.) are in the way? Did you start the fortress by building the most critical areas in the first available spot? Well, now is a good time to get rid of that! For added effects, put the sleeping areas especially close to the booze stockpile so that dwarves are always happy!

'''Difficulty:''' Varies depending on the size of the fortress.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies depending on how you carry it out, a.k.a. the efficiency of the new organization.

* Bonus: use [[obsidian]] casting to carve the new fortress entirely out of obsidian.
** DwarfBonus: but keep valuable walls such as [[native gold]].
*** PurpleDwarfBonus: using controlled [[cave-in]]s, arrange for your king's new room to be entirely bordered by native gold/platinum/aluminium walls.

==Rehabilitation centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!
* Megabonus: Spike traders who annoy you on the traps!

==Roof of the world==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Sectorized world==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained vampire-based factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Sapient zoo==
Start by creating a [[zoo]] containing at least one of every [INTELLIGENT] and [CAN_SPEAK] creature
including [[humans]], [[elves]], [[goblin]]s and [[kobold]]s.

*Bonus: include a berserk dwarf in cage

'''Difficulty:''' Easy for some, Hard for others

'''Usefulness:''' None, really, a place for dwarves to throw a [[party]].

==Self-destruct lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self-destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.
* FunBonus: use the lever to drop the fortress off a pillar while simultaneously opening the [[hidden fun stuff]], preferably in a whole lot of places.
*ExtraFunBonus: do as many of these bonuses as you please (as long as they still function together) AND unleash a whole lot of dwarves throwing tantrums near the lever when you wish to set the fun things off.

==Shark catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==Silk farming==
{{main|Silk farming}}
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==Steamed vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].
*DwarfBonus: feed any vegetables you did not steam to your dear friends, the [[Demon|clowns]].

==Swimming pool==
{{main|Swimming#Learning/Teaching swimming|l1=Swimming § Learning/Teaching swimming}}
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Swimming track==
{{main|Swimming#Minecart_training|l1=Swimming § Minecart_training}}

[[Image:Swim track 0.png|thumb|right|250px|A large swimming track]]

A [[minecart]] ride that trains [[swimming]] safely and automatically.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Minecart tracks can be fiddly, and adding a non-traversable depth of water makes any mistakes more difficult to fix.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. The swimming skill is only slightly useful, but it does provide [[cross-training]] for attribute gains.

==Tower of Death-Struction==

Have you ever wondered, "What would it take to make my [[Siege|friends]] all [[Gravity|fall]] at once into a pit of [[Trap|fun times]] while also not risking failure?" Elementary, my aspiring architect -- [[Fun|THE TOWER OF DEATH-STRUCTION]]!

Step 1: Build a tower with a [[bridge]], to allow for non-lethal access to the fortress. Build the tower roughly 25-30 blocks high, though higher towers tend to result in roughly equivalent amounts of [[Fun]]. The access bridge should be linked to a lever, to close it like a standard gate.

Step 2: Build a thinner tower 20 blocks away, for maximum bridge length. Any number of middle towers can be constructed, though one is recommended.

Step 3: Build another tower, one that can be ascended by [[Goblin|curious friends]]. Fill it with cage traps, to thin out the number of [[Troll|friends]] to take up space on the bridge.

Step 4: Build two bridges on either side of the skybridge, to trap attackers on the skybridge.

Step 5: Hook up the skybridges to one lever, and the trap bridge to another.

Once this is done, just wait for a [[Siege|surprise party]] to be thrown for you. Close the access bridge, forcing the [[Goblin|visitors]] to path onto it. Trap them, and when the time looks right...

'''Pull the lever, Kronk!'''

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to hard. If all of your dwarves have cave adaptation, the construction might take a lot longer to complete. As well, the cost of floors and traps alone will mean that just acquiring the materials will need its own stupid dwarf trick.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to high, depending on how well you use it. If you forget to open the access gate, you might find your dwarves trapped inside the tower, or even worse, they may run up to the bridge to fight and meet a [[Gravity|bad time]]. Also, the goblin corpses piling up in the spike pit might cause extra [[Miasma|fun]] depending on how regularly you take care of it. If done correctly, this tower might become the most efficient and effective defence against all problems that one could possibly ask for.

*Bonus: Build enough middle towers to build a bridge path long enough to trap an entire siege and drop them onto spikes below.
*SuperBonus: Build the towers above a river.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a lava pit.
*SuperMegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a ticket straight to [[HFS|the circus]].
*ArmokBonus: Build the towers out of [[Slade]] (Note: This should be impossible, so if you do it...))
*HardcoreDwarvenMasterpieceArtifactBonus: Build the fortress at the top of the tower that the goblins have to try to get to.

== Traveling Circus ==
Travel across the world, building megaprojects like pyramids or bridges.

'''Difficulty''': The larger the world, the higher.

'''Usefulness''': ''None at all''.
* Bonus: travel around and actually release [[HFS|the circus]] on every embark. Needless to say, this is the most [[fun]] option. You may consider making sure the clowns get their share of fun, if you want your circus to happen more than once...

==Underground forest==
{{main|Tree farming}}
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground perpetual motion power plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors then fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. artificial intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in, or it will become very [[fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

Bonus: Make an ACTUAL Vomitorium for this - Build a [[meeting hall]] with a [[grate]]d floor. Let [[cave adaptation]] set in, then open the place up for the most extravagant and lavish of parties every 3~4 years! Those will be some Armok grade hangovers though....

==Water tower==
This functions much like real life: Lifting water above ground level creates pressure, allowing buried pipes to deliver water to any elevation below the top of the tower. This is smarter, faster, and cheaper than a map-spanning raised aqueduct. A pump stack at the river, raising water into a sealed, pressurized U-bend, can deliver large volumes of water to whatever level you want, very quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. No harder than any other pump stack to design, but high pressure can amplify minor errors into abandon-worthy disasters. You could conceivably divert the river into your fort. Be sure to make an off-switch.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Once the pump stack is operating, you no longer need to be anywhere near your water source.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Werewolf clock==
The changing of the werewolf is the most reliable indicator of the passing of seasons. For precisely one day per full moon, he will go berserk and trigger standard pressure plates.

'''Difficulty:''' You will get a were sooner or later. Getting him pitted in the right spot without havoc is the hard part.

'''Usefulness:''' Low/None. As of Premium, the lunar phase is permanently affixed to the user interface, making a werewolf clock frankly redundant.

*Bonus: Make the werewolf do most of the work himself.

==Zombie thunderdome==
Embark in a [[surroundings#Evil|reanimating]] biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
*CavernFunBonus: Channel the bottom into a cavern and let your zombies hunt [[forgotten beast|the wonderful creatures there]].
**BonusFunBonus: Let them hunt [[Demon|Clowns]] as well.
*ZombieDwarfBonus: Ignore the suggestion above and dump dwarven corpses in anyway.

==Zombie shooting gallery==

In a reanimating biome, build a holding room for your undead, wall it off with fortifications. In the adjacent (accessible) area, build an archery range and order your archery squads to train there. Your marksdwarves will go to their scheduled archery training and whenever a zombie is raised, they'll switch focus from the boring old archery target and instead shoot down the undead. Once the zombies are dead, they'll return to regular shooting practice until the corpses rise again. The raised corpses cannot attack through fortifications and thus cause no unhappy thoughts from seeing them, but will spook haulers trying to collect errant socks from the shooting range.

A viable (if finicky) alternative to a reanimating biome could be a [[necromancer]]. This has the benefit of being more controllable, but comes with the threat of [[intelligent undead]] and their abilities. Most would be relatively harmless or a minor inconvenience, but some are potentially lethal to your dwarves. Whether or not this is a downside depends on how many corpses you have available to restock the gallery.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. The difficulty lies in finding a source of permanent undead, the actual construction is trivial.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. This setup significantly increases the skill gain from bolts used by training dwarves, since every bolt shot at a zombie counts as combat action, giving much more experience. The scheme works without any supervision once set up.

{{Category|Design}}
[[ru:Stupid dwarf trick]]

Stupid dwarf trick

2026-04-28T21:15:40Z

Silverwing235: /* Adventure mode fortress */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and/or effort. They may provide a practical benefit, but are frequently done for the sake of doing them; they exist primarily as a [[challenge]] for experienced players.

==Adventure mode fortress==


Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor; possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol. This means an alarm clock is not impossible if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. Even less if using sprites. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount (and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to medium. If the chamber containing the altar is consecrated as a [[temple]], dwarves will go there to pray, and may gain additional happy thoughts for admiring the altar's materials and craftsdwarfship.

*Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
**MegaSacrificialBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Anthill==
Build your fortresses hallways and rooms on the same Z-axis. Building rooms with depth is fine, as long as their west/east walls are on the same Z-coordinate. All the walls on the Z-coordinate should be glass. Hollow out the opposite section so that the area beside the glass is empty. Build viewing platforms in the hollowed-out space.
'''Difficulty''' High. The limited space is a huge restraint, and caverns are a huge issue.

'''Usefulness''' Very low, although intruders can be forced to climb the viewing area to enter, letting marksdwarves pick them off easily through fortifications.

*MirrorBonus: Instead of a viewing area, build a perfect replica of the fort.
*SuperDwarfGalaxyBonus: Make it horizontal instead of vertical.
**MegaBonus: Build it into the magma sea.

==Aqueduct power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]]. It is now very rare to find a powerful enough aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' High.

==Archaeological excavation==
A Fortress in the caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (e.g. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Variable. Carving a premade fort or building controlled access to caverns can potentially be useful for a Reclaim effort, effectively making the first wave dispoable setup so your would-be archologists to dig up and exploit their new home. The more Fun you leave behind, the harder it will be for your second wave to repurpose the place.

*Bonus: A museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves.
*Bonus: Create a save with your First Tribe fort collapsed/flooded/etc, for other users to explore. Leave them some Fun what-does-this-lever-do problems to solve.
*EncinoDwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice.
*FunBonus: Breach the HFS.
**MegaBonus: Do a cave in to the HFS after fighting it leaving multiple signs of battle in the fortress, to be dug by your modern dwarves.

==Artificial waterfall==
{{main|Waterfall}}
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==Ballista battery==
{{main|Ballista}}
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, add a little magma, and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
** StonksBonus: Rig a way for your bastion to transfer supplies to the outside world without exposing themselves to danger, so they can be somewhat useful to the rest of your fort before their inevitable downfall. Doubles as a way to restock the bastion with fresh supplies and/or bodies, or a way to let the apocalypse in a little at a time if your survivors get too comfortable.
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludge into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when sanitizing the main one and closes and sanitizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Boat==
In intermittently freezing biomes, [[ice]] may be used to create actual floating boats, submarines, or other floating objects/forts; as constructions built on top of ice do not collapse when the ice thaws.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Needs an intermittently freezing biome, construction is limited to frozen periods, and there's a substantial risk of flooding, drowning and being encased in ice.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Forts within boats are protected from invaders while the water is unfrozen, but they're also trapped within the confines of the boat.

Note: You'll probably want to limit your saves to the colder months.

* DwarfBonus: Have the dwarves live on the boat.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make miscreants/nobles walk the plank.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Bury your treasure on shore.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Have a pet [[kea]] for each of your dwarves.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build it on top of an ice tower.

==Bolt splitting operation==

## Note: no longer works due to climbing mechanics ##

One curious property of Dwarven physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the update that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] (or [[Divine metal]] if you don't have it; or [[Steel]] if you have neither) bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Another design resembles a tower where marksdwarves shoot from the top, with the following setup: (click then press '<' and '>' to go through different z-levels)
<diagram>
<frame type="level" level=0>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]<[%204][%185][#5:1]g[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 01
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=1>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%203][%205][%187]
[%186]X[%204][%185][#7:1]O[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%202][%202][%205][%188]

< 02 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=2>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]X+[#3:1]/[#7:0].[%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%205][%188]

< 03 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=3>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187]+
[%186]X[%186].[%186]+
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188]+

< 04 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=4>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%203][%205][%187].
[%186]X[%186].[%186].
[%200][%205][%202][%205][%188].

< 05 >
</frame>
<frame type="level" level=5>
[#7:0]
[%201][%205][%205][%205][%187]
[%186]>+[#6:1]@[#7:0][%186]
[%200][%205][%205][%205][%188]

06 >
</frame>
</diagram>
The '@' is any number of marksdwarves standing on a down stair. You may want to use a defend burrow order to restrict them to that tile. The 'g' is a goblin or any other creature your marksdwarves will normally fire at upon encounter (pitted from 2 z-levels above). The 'O' is a well, which is suspected to be preventing dwarves from plunging in and starting brawling with the creature. Marksdwarves will be able to see the goblin or whatever creature below and will loose all bolts in their quivers on them. Curiously, nearly all the bolts will fail to cross the bend in the middle and will fall onto the tile '/' where they can be collected. This disregards crossbow and archery skills and the only difference they make is the speed at which the bolts are split. This design has the advantage of taking less space and being easier to set up, however it is reported that sometimes the dwarves will not miss some of the bolts. If you are only stationing one marksdwarf in the tower, stationing another one may help the first one miss all of his bolts, even after the newly added one is then removed. Sometimes dwarves will spam job cancellation on the bolt collection level, and it is also reported that sometimes some dwarves will start firing when they are on the bolt collection level. In such cases you may want to seal the collection level off and open it once in a while to retrieve the bolts.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite metal|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the dam (release the river!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh maniacally.

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that raises under its victims' feet, flinging enemies away.

Bridges don't fling creatures in any specific direction, apart from "up". So it's more of a spring-board than a catapult. If there's a lot of open space above the bridge, creatures can get flung very high - ten z-levels and more - and take appropriate falling damage. Most of them will land atop the bridge, and bringing the same bridge down will simply crush them.

'''Difficulty:''' Fairly easy. Getting the timing right promises to be the biggest challenge.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

===Cat-a-pult===
Essentially a Bridge-a-pult with specific ammo.

'''Difficulty''': Very easy, given that you have live cats in your fortress.

'''Usefulness''': Can be used as a way to stop a [[catsplosion]] if used with male cats. [[Unfortunate accident|Cats can also be replaced with elite citizens of your fortress.]] 

==Corpse processing facility==
WARNING: The system can freely jam on any body parts, besides hands and heads, without killing undead.
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with an artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something more out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

NOTE: necromancer siege's corpses now drop clothes and gear.

==Crocodile farm==
They're a thing in real life, and you can make them a thing in-game too! Use cage traps to capture multiple breeding pairs of [[alligator]]s, [[cave crocodile]]s or [[saltwater crocodile]]s, [[Animal trainer|train]] them, then create an area to store them with [[nest box]]es. Breed them so you have more crocodilians to keep laying eggs, rinse and repeat.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, somewhat dependent on RNG - you need to find someplace with available crocs, you want said crocs to actually spawn and you want said crocs to actually get caught in the traps. <s>May</s> Will also lead to an explosive and FPS-shattering [[Catsplosion#Crocsplosion|crocsplosion]] sooner or later.

'''Usefulness:''' Very high, you'll never have to worry about food again simply from cooking the eggs, and that's not counting butchering the crocs when they're adults.

*Bonus: Have alligators, cave crocs and saltwater crocs '''all''' present in the farm.
*SwampBonus: Have your croc farm submerged in anywhere between 1/7 to 3/7 [[water]]. You gotta keep your crocs healthy and wet! But make sure not to submerge the nest boxes!
*SavageBonus: Have [[giant alligator]]s or/and [[giant saltwater crocodile]]s as part of your farm.
**Archcrystal bonus: Replace the crocs with [[Hydras]]. Keep them in a usually unseen location, as any Urist McFoolhardy walking by will try to attack them on sight.
*TrainerBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert alligator/cave croc/saltwater croc trainers.
**SteveIrwinBonus: Have your dwarves become Expert trainers of all croc species.
*HungryHungryCrocBonus: Build your farm in such a way that [[siege]]s have to go through it to reach your fortress.
*UltraCrocBonus: Have [[Alligator man|alligator men]] or/and [[Saltwater crocodile man|saltwater crocodile men]] inhabiting your fortress and helping train the croc farm.
**UltraArmokCrocBonus: Have an entire fortress of croc men handling a croc farm. You're dwarves in spirit.

==Dam==
{{main|Dam}}
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.)

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==Danger room==
{{main|Danger room}}
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': Low. While this used to be a very effecting training method, it's quite deadly now, even for militiadwarves. They also wear down your dwarves' armor and shields quickly, making them harmful for your long-term survival, even if your militiadwarves manage to survive the room itself.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*UltraDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers, or get into accidents. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to [[quantum stockpile]] a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, toys, clothing, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like hauling, crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in miscellaneous professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (Dorfanage) (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies, depending on the bonuses built. With v50, children are a lot easier to mentally scar for life, making them prone to fell moods and tantrums, so having a safe form of daycare allows them to grow up into adults whose stress levels are usually easier to manage

*SchoolBonus: Make the daycare a guild hall, and add a highly skilled dwarf and another adult to the burrow. The two will give demonstrations that the kids will occasionally watch, gaining experience in a profession of your choice
*OlympicBonus: Build a swimming pool of 4/7 between critical parts of the daycare, so the kids have to go through the water for their everyday tasks, gaining swimming skill and associated stats.
*ChildSoldierBonus: Make the daycare a barracks, and have your crack squad of dwarves spar and demonstrate there to train up the military skills of your dwarven children
*HighSchoolBonus: All of the above, and make [[nobles]] and unskilled migrants stay there to learn.

==Doberman bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus: Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus: Use one (or more!) of the following list: [[dragon]]s, [[bronze colossus]]es, [[forgotten beast]]s (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or [[Hidden Fun Stuff|Clowns of Hidden Funland]].

==Drophole==
Imagine an execution tower, for rocks and pants. It's nothing but a very deep 1x1 up-down staircase for express service to the depths. Designate a garbage dump beside the top and dwarves will pitch anything marked for [[Dumping]] into it.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds, there's always snags along the way. Surprise caverns can cost you miners and tools. Hitting water can be vexing. Dumping and reclaiming things can be a chore. It may serve as an unintended highway for Fun of any liquid or airborne variety

'''Usefulness:''' It's '''far''' easier to drop ore 100 z-levels to the magma sea than carry it. You can use this to transfer items between burrows.

*Bonus: Minecarts can make this semi-automatic, fed from a stockpile.

==Drowning chamber==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==Dwarfputer complex==
{{main|Computing}}
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers (''bugs, perhaps?'') enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven apartment complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to [[Losing|fun]] by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc.) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaOrwellBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*Bonus: Punch a large shaft through a multi-level aquifer (hint: punch through the aquifer from below).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self-sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the [[Demon|clowns]] while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven disco ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven labor camp (aka Dwalag)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

Bonus: Also use nether-cap wood to build the walls, floor, ceiling, and door.

Bonus: While we are at it make all your coffins out of it. 'Cryogenically' freeze those corpses!

==Dwarven machine gun==
Build a high fire rate, minecart firing machine gun. Must be fully automatic, capable of reloading itself, and should not jam due to minecarts being disrupted by collisions or derailments.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on fire rate, reload downtime, and whether or not minecarts are filled with [[magma]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. A sophisticated minecart trap can keep out even the most persistent invaders.

*Bonus: Automatically reload minecarts with [[magma]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Integrate the trap with a dwarfputer so that it can automatically send minecarts to where they are needed most.

==Elephant man armor factory==
[[Elephant man]] are incredibly strong in combat — both in [[Dwarf fortress mode|Fortress]] and [[Adventurer mode|Adventurer]] modes. However, they can't put on normal-sized [[Armor]] — and therefore, walk around in crappy starting armor at best, naked at worst. We'll put [[Elephant man]] to make [[Armor]] — and another [[Elephant man]] for [[Clothes]].

'''Difficulty:''' Easy. Depends on amount of [[Elephant man]] spawning in the world.

'''Usefulness:''' Your [[Elephant man]] [[Military|super-soldiers]] are now properly armored. Considering their size, strength, and possibly training, they are now borderline-invulnerable. Also, you have enough armor complects for your [[Elephant man]] [[Adventurer mode|Adventurers]].

==Emergency destruct stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Send prisoners straight to the [[HFS]]. If some mod makes them survive, the [[Clown]]s will have their way with them. May make retrieving items difficult, however.

==Flak==
If flying enemies circumventing your walls and causing mayhem inside your fortress is a problem, don't use marksdwarves, just make some flak! Simply cover a series of drawbridges in rocks, and when fliers come by pull the lever.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Contrary to the description, marksdwarves are more accurate, versatile, and just better. However, if you manage to hit something with this, there's a large chance of it getting stunned and crashing to the ground. Remember, what goes up must come down, wear your helmet Urist!

*Bonus: Use minecarts and pressure plates to make it fully automatic.
*SuperBonus: Make it closer to real world flak by using burning lignite bins.
*EfficiencyBonus: Use goblins as ammo
*AlternateBonus: Instead of drawbridges and stone, use jets of water to stun flyers, and then release the dogs. Alternatively, burn them in midair with lava.
*FunBonus: Use the above method with lava, except use the lava as a propellent to throw the circus at the local crow population.
*ArmokBonus: Use all of the above to emulate what happens when you drift into American airspace.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a fair bit of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. [[Dragonfire]] can kill almost anything, but will be blocked by a [[shield]] greater than 99% of the time. Adding a combustible floor (such as a paved [[lignite]] [[road]]) will significantly increase lethality for shield-toting targets. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications may melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; ensuring the bridge center tile isn't near the fire, or building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[divine metal]] (or [[slade]]) will make them immune to the fire. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer can easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot, if line-of-sight access is available.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the hidden fun stuff and use them.

==Flood the world==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate unless you sink the world below water level (river or ocean).

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==Gladiator arena==
{{main|Live training}}
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages. Keep in mind that you can't actually make your dwarves "watch" the battles like an actual gladiator arena, as civilians will flee in fear at the sight of non-restrained hostile creatures, even if they're in a pit and not actively attacking them.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*DwarfBonus: Winners also get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Grazer reanimation facility==
Just as stables, but without grass, and on a reanimating biome. Pasture every grazer in a separate box, and build [[cage trap]]s to recapture the animal after it joins [[undead|the Dark Side]]. Make sure to forbid the area after you finish setting things up, because you don't want your dwarves getting <s>killed</s> caught instead.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You always get some grazing animals to start with.

'''Usefulness:''' You get a decent supply of zombies to use in your [[trap design|cunning traps]]. Depending on your style of play, this may prove to be worth the effort.

* DwarfBonus: Use war [[elephant]]s, or any other giant {{catlink|Grazer|grazing animal}} you <s>bought</s> seized from elves.
** MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[giant elephant]]s.
*** BoatMurderedBonus: Release them all simultaneously to challenge your militia/play out a [[fun|!fun!]] scenario for your fort.
* MenagerieBonus: Create a zoo using only undead grazers.
** DwarvenMenagerieBonus: Combine this with the [[#Zombie_thunderdome|Zombie Thunderdome]] and have a rotation of undead cows fighting in the arena only to be re-caged when they try to leave.
*** ChampionBonus: Give each grazer rooming in the zoo according to their kills, with the champion having the most luxurious room.
**** AltarBonus: Turn the champion's room into an [[#Altar_of_Armok|Altar of Armok]].
**** FreedomBonus: Let the champion and higher-ranking zombies roam freely in their rooms, having to be re-captured for each battle.
***** !FreedomBonus!: Release the champion into your fort.
* HolyGrailBonus: Use white [[bunny|bunnies]].

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksdwarfs handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.
*MegaHumanBonusPlus: Designate multiple dumping spots into the lava moat.
*SurfaceDwellerBonus: Get the stone for your constructions entirely from open-pit quarries, i.e. by c[h]annelling instead of [d]igging.
*MegaSurfaceDwellerBonus: Never use picks at all, all stone and metal must come from caravans or embark.
*WhereTheBeardedLadiesAtBonus: Enforce as many <s>pointless</s> quaint human quirks as feasible, for instance: nominating officials per wealth/popularity/relationships instead of merit and suitedness, coddling Nobles, burrowing farmers, miners, brewers, craftsdwarves and other backbones of society into the most tattered ridings, enforcing a specific religion upon the populace, and so forth.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], or [[gold]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

* BabelBonus: Use [[DFHack]]'s <code>infiniteSky</code> and build to the heavens themselves.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' [[Cave-in|Negative]]. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*YouHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Single-lever emergency lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build the same number of bridges (that raise!) as your stairway is tall on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.
*MegaArmokEntombment<s>'''Bait&Switch'''</s>Diplomatic+Bonus: Set the highest level up on another switch, with a particularly <s>'''demanding and annoying noble'''</s> skilled diplomatic representative is waiting at the very bottom to <s>'''lure'''</s> invite them all down for a nice meal on <s>'''his flesh'''</s> the stockpile of food and booze that's keep him ever so happy. Then you can wait for the entire army to flow into the stairwell before flipping the switches. Don't forget to carve a statue out of the block of the noble! What noble doesn't want their grand <s>'''sacrificial defense'''</s> diplomatic skills to be immortalized in volcanic glass?
**UltraArmokBonus: Defeat all your invasions this way, and build a temple to Armok full of the once noble, now obsidian statues, as well as only the highest of quality (and value) memorial slabs.

==Magma Lock System==
This system is a little more complicated than the LEL system described above, and requires that you space out all of your floors so that there's a 'plumbing floor' between each level. From there you set up tons and tons of magma proof floodgates and hatches. Each 'area' you wish to be self-contained from one another needs at least a 3x2 hallway separating it from the other areas. 4 of these will contain flood gates, and the other two must remain bare. Above one of the two bare points you need to have a hollowed out space, and connecting into it from one side you need to have a hatch leading to your water plumbing system, to the other, a hatch to your lava plumbing system. You need two levers for controlling this, one lever is connected to all of the lower floodgates, the other to the upper floodgates. Pull the first hatch to lock in the flood gates just in case, the second to the upper flood gates to begin pouring in water and magma and have them make obsidian filling the entire hallway, sterilizing it of literally anything that could have contaminated it. You do this instead of hatches so they'll drop in properly and mix with no risk of only one side or the other of the hallway turning to obsidian and resulting in a dangerous leak. Throw the first switch again to open up the floodgates and begin mining to access the old chambers again. Whatever was invading your fortress, whether plague, necromancer, clowns, or forgotten beast, will be safely locked away, and unable to break back out whether or not it possesses building destroyer or not. Then you just have to wait for your miners to dig their way out. You can simply avoid the chambers that still have FUN inside, and any the purity of magma and obsidian will have utterly obliterated any traces of contaminants between containment zones.

'''Difficulty''': Medium to High. While not dealing with anything overtly hostile, this process more or less demands that you plan your fortress from the start for this specific system and deal with lots and lots of moving parts, mechanisms, and similar, plus the power necessary to pump magma and water into this network in a timely manner.. If you screw up part of it then it's very easy to end up with your entire fortress flooded with water or magma. Build it on small and give it a test run then expand it once you've gotten the process working for a single chamber, such as the chamber leading to your cavern layer.

'''Usefulness''': High. Depending on how you prepare things (See the bonuses below) the necessary set up for all of this will result in a network of magma and water pipes in every single level of your fortress, powering forges, wells, baths, showers, and defenses of all sorts. Then when things are at their worst, throw a switch and barring one or two (or many depending on how many dwarves are transitioning between containment areas) horribly swift deaths, your entire fortress is safe from any possible threats. You can also prepare chambers ahead of time for other activities and use this to trap enemies in them for later usage.

*DwarfBonus: Put a stockpile of food, drink, and pickaxes in each containment area.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Put a lever in every zone connected just to their own, so your dwarves can heroically seal off an entire section by themselves if necessary.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Extend the hallways, and make the water half of them use grates and constant water falls to give good thoughts while traversing between zones. Change up your levers to shut off the water for when digging begins again.

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Filodorima: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].
*MemorialBonus: Capture the Goblin King and make him fight the Minotaur.

==Magma chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma cannon==
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma access early==
ASAP from embark, dig down to the magma. 
Make 2 magma proof pumps, 
make a small (5x5?) room that you can pump magma into and out of and 
make a stockpile for only iron & steel minecarts in the room. 
Be sure to make enough minecarts to fill the room. 
Once the room is full of minecarts, seal room and pump it full of magma. 
Then pump the magma out. 
Delete the stockpile. 
Make a new stockpile near your forge/smelt/glass/kiln area. 
Haul minecarts by hand (or magma proof wheelbarrow). 
Use tracks and stops to dump 4 deep magma into shallow pits. 
2 minecart loads per pit. 

'''Difficulty:''' Low. 
'''Usefulness:''' Very High. 
*Bonus: !!Magma Economy By Autumn!!
*ObsidianBonus: Instead of pumping the magma out, drain water from a nearby lake or aquifer cistern onto it to turn it into obsidian. Carve out the minecarts, magma safely still inside, and enjoy the extra obsidian you have. Watch out not to flood the fortress!

==Magma highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with exactly the same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma sea colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==<s>Magma</s> Lava sprinkler==
Build a twisting <s>magma</s> lava aqueduct above the entrance to your fortress. Leave a few thin (diagonal) holes in it, so that lava can seep out of it. When invaders arrive, pump magma into the sprinkler. Diagonal holes will limit the rate at which the fluid flows out of them, ensuring a nice steady lava rain rather than a big wave.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Similar to magma canon, except with a bit more engineering, but less pumps and smaller reservoir needed (due to less magma being required for the same effect).

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Like magma cannon it can obliterate a siege, but this time you can have a bit more control over how it happens. Lava rain doesn't depend on ground structure (your entrance doesn't need to be in a valley for it to work well) and leaves less magma to evaporate.

*Bonus: Cover the holes with floodgates or hatches and keep the lavaduct filled with lava rather than filling it only when using it.
*Bonus+1: Build the lavaduct in such a way that it starts raining on the outermost part of the area first, then goes inwards, to ensure that invaders who start burning can't escape.

==Mass cage recycling system==
{{main|Mass pitting}}
Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==Mega/Water drowning trap-thing==
{{main|Drowning chamber}}
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Minecart spiral==
Build a giant spiral [[Minecart#Impulse ramps|minecart impulse ramp]] all the way from the [[magma sea]] to the surface. You can use it to transport ores to the [[magma smelter|magma smelters]] at the bottom from [[sedimentary layer|sedimentary layers]] near the surface. You can build [[statues]] in it to prevent dwarves from walking in and [[fun|dying]].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium-High. You will most likely have to use [[macros]]. Additionally, when crossing caverns you will have to [[construct]] minecart ramps which can be tedious.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. It depends on how tall your map is and how much ores you consume.

*TrapBonus: Use [[bridge|drawbridge]] to guide invaders to the spiral, then [[screw pump|pump]] water into it and drown them.
**BetterTrapBonus: Make it [[magma]] instead.
*SuperBonus: Make the tower go all the way to the highest [[Z-axis|Z level]].
**ArmokBonus: Make it go through the magma sea, and [[HFS|further below]].
*Bonus: At the top, set up a system where dwarves can guide minecarts to different vertical shafts where the will fall to different Z levels, for loading. Then, the minecarts fall further down to the smelters, where the empty minecarts are sent back up for loading.
**MegaBonus: Divide your dwarves into two separate [[burrows]] connected only by the minecart spiral and the shaft. The higher burrow is in charge of mining, growing food, and operating the minecart system, and the lower burrow is in charge of smelting ores and making crafts.
***HyperMegaBonus: Close off all stairs and add a minecart loading and unloading station at every inhabited z level. All vertical transport of goods should be done via minecarts only. Also, dwarves are not allowed in minecarts.
****UltraSuperBonus: Build a minecart loading and unloading station at every Z level, even the uninhabited ones you never use.

==Mist generator==

Using whatever screw-pump-statue contraption your dwarves can muster up, create an endless mist-generating machine which will hopefully not obliterate your [[Frames_per_second|FPS]].

'''Difficulty:''' Extremely easy. You will only need a basic understanding of screwpumps and gear assemblies. However, you can scale it to any size or level of complexity. The [[Mist|mist page]] has a handy guide.

'''Usefulness:''' Borderline cheating. Keeps your dwarves in a state of constant euphoria. Mist does funny things to a dwarf's mind. Also a one-up from artificial waterfalls as they only need to travel a single Z level, (hopefully) reducing the FPS strain.
*Bonus: Build an absolutely horrible fortress with as much [[miasma]] and [[hateable]] vermin that you can fit in one bunker. Keep your dwarves sane with the power of Mist™ alone.
**FUNbonus: Build it in a semi-freezing climate instead. Watch as winter rolls by and your dwarves are deprived of their only source of joy. [[Fun]] will surely ensue.

==Monumental statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*BestWayToGetRidOfStoneBonus: Make one for every dead dwarf.
**UberTombBonus: Use the statue as a tomb and put their coffins in it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

*Bonus: Use the Moses effect to make doors from water, which are opened/closed using a lever.
*TechBonus: Automatize the doors so that they open (only!) when a dwarf is near.

==Never-ending shower==
{{main|Waterfall}}
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==Nuclear Fallout Bunker==
Build a mini fortress with everything your dwarves could need deep underground. Stock it with enough food, drinks, and materials to last your small band of survivors for years or alternatively make it self-sufficient with its own food production. Lastly, add a bridge that allows you to seal off the bunker from the rest of the world.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy-Medium depending on the relative luxury of the bunker and how many dwarves you intend to shelter from the apocalypse.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your fort is threatened by some particularly nasty disaster (be it zombie goblin horde or Bronze Colossus) simply rush your best and brightest dwarves down to the Nuclear Fallout Bunker and raise the bridge, sealing it off from the rest of the world.
*MutallyAssuredDestructionBonus: Have a self-destruct lever in the bunker that is pulled once everyone is safely inside.

==Obsidian factory==
{{main|Obsidian farming}}
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber, a drowning chamber and even an obsidianizing chamber that can kill any creature that gets in (except [[ghost]]s and possibly [[vermin]]).

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

* Bonus: Link the spikes to a lever so you can proceed to make swiss cheese of whatever didn't die from the fall.

==Pixel art stockpiles==
Arrange several stockpiles of similar items of different colors (gems work well for this) so the different colors make some sort of picture. Don't forget to set "max bins" to 0 on all the stockpiles so you can actually see the items!

It's probably also a good idea to forbid the items once they're in place, to prevent them from being moved later (and allow you to remove the stockpiles if you want.)

'''Difficulty:''' Medium; only tricky parts are (potentially) finding enough items of different colors, and keeping track of which colors are where before the hauling is done.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative

==Pressure washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and instantly submerges anything in the way of the flow. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here].

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though it won't flow out nearly as quickly).

==Quantum Blizzard Cannon==

Do you need to kill something? Is atom-smashing no longer a viable option? Do you wish to bring glory to Armok? Do not fear, the QBC is here! By creating individual stops to fill minecarts with projectiles of your choosing, then loading up to 12 filled minecarts into a final “Launcher” minecart (using a stop designated to fill the "launcher" with minecarts), you can effectively fire as many items as you would like at your foe using a standard minecart shotgun. It is also possible to fill this with fluids, to great effect (and risk of crashing the game). This can often have interesting effects because hitting a goblin with 996 bars of lead at extreme speeds is not good for the squishy bits. The cannon gains its name from its creator.

''' Difficulty:''' excessive, lots of time in menus and loading per shot, but really ((Fun))

''' Usefulness:''' medium to low. The same trick can be used to move large amounts of items via minecart, but ultimately the QBC is excessive for even the HFS.

==Redesign the fortress==
And when we say "redesign", we mean completely replanning and rebuilding the entire fortress, from scratch. Ever thought about a cool thing that you could add to your fortress, but can't because a critical area(such as the dining room, general-purpose stockpile, central workshop area etc.) are in the way? Did you start the fortress by building the most critical areas in the first available spot? Well, now is a good time to get rid of that! For added effects, put the sleeping areas especially close to the booze stockpile so that dwarves are always happy!

'''Difficulty:''' Varies depending on the size of the fortress.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies depending on how you carry it out, a.k.a. the efficiency of the new organization.

* Bonus: use [[obsidian]] casting to carve the new fortress entirely out of obsidian.
** DwarfBonus: but keep valuable walls such as [[native gold]].
*** PurpleDwarfBonus: using controlled [[cave-in]]s, arrange for your king's new room to be entirely bordered by native gold/platinum/aluminium walls.

==Rehabilitation centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!
* Megabonus: Spike traders who annoy you on the traps!

==Roof of the world==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Sectorized world==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained vampire-based factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Sapient zoo==
Start by creating a [[zoo]] containing at least one of every [INTELLIGENT] and [CAN_SPEAK] creature
including [[humans]], [[elves]], [[goblin]]s and [[kobold]]s.

*Bonus: include a berserk dwarf in cage

'''Difficulty:''' Easy for some, Hard for others

'''Usefulness:''' None, really, a place for dwarves to throw a [[party]].

==Self-destruct lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self-destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.
* FunBonus: use the lever to drop the fortress off a pillar while simultaneously opening the [[hidden fun stuff]], preferably in a whole lot of places.
*ExtraFunBonus: do as many of these bonuses as you please (as long as they still function together) AND unleash a whole lot of dwarves throwing tantrums near the lever when you wish to set the fun things off.

==Shark catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==Silk farming==
{{main|Silk farming}}
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==Steamed vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].
*DwarfBonus: feed any vegetables you did not steam to your dear friends, the [[Demon|clowns]].

==Swimming pool==
{{main|Swimming#Learning/Teaching swimming|l1=Swimming § Learning/Teaching swimming}}
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Swimming track==
{{main|Swimming#Minecart_training|l1=Swimming § Minecart_training}}

[[Image:Swim track 0.png|thumb|right|250px|A large swimming track]]

A [[minecart]] ride that trains [[swimming]] safely and automatically.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Minecart tracks can be fiddly, and adding a non-traversable depth of water makes any mistakes more difficult to fix.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. The swimming skill is only slightly useful, but it does provide [[cross-training]] for attribute gains.

==Tower of Death-Struction==

Have you ever wondered, "What would it take to make my [[Siege|friends]] all [[Gravity|fall]] at once into a pit of [[Trap|fun times]] while also not risking failure?" Elementary, my aspiring architect -- [[Fun|THE TOWER OF DEATH-STRUCTION]]!

Step 1: Build a tower with a [[bridge]], to allow for non-lethal access to the fortress. Build the tower roughly 25-30 blocks high, though higher towers tend to result in roughly equivalent amounts of [[Fun]]. The access bridge should be linked to a lever, to close it like a standard gate.

Step 2: Build a thinner tower 20 blocks away, for maximum bridge length. Any number of middle towers can be constructed, though one is recommended.

Step 3: Build another tower, one that can be ascended by [[Goblin|curious friends]]. Fill it with cage traps, to thin out the number of [[Troll|friends]] to take up space on the bridge.

Step 4: Build two bridges on either side of the skybridge, to trap attackers on the skybridge.

Step 5: Hook up the skybridges to one lever, and the trap bridge to another.

Once this is done, just wait for a [[Siege|surprise party]] to be thrown for you. Close the access bridge, forcing the [[Goblin|visitors]] to path onto it. Trap them, and when the time looks right...

'''Pull the lever, Kronk!'''

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to hard. If all of your dwarves have cave adaptation, the construction might take a lot longer to complete. As well, the cost of floors and traps alone will mean that just acquiring the materials will need its own stupid dwarf trick.

'''Usefulness:''' Low to high, depending on how well you use it. If you forget to open the access gate, you might find your dwarves trapped inside the tower, or even worse, they may run up to the bridge to fight and meet a [[Gravity|bad time]]. Also, the goblin corpses piling up in the spike pit might cause extra [[Miasma|fun]] depending on how regularly you take care of it. If done correctly, this tower might become the most efficient and effective defence against all problems that one could possibly ask for.

*Bonus: Build enough middle towers to build a bridge path long enough to trap an entire siege and drop them onto spikes below.
*SuperBonus: Build the towers above a river.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a lava pit.
*SuperMegaDwarfBonus: Build the towers above a ticket straight to [[HFS|the circus]].
*ArmokBonus: Build the towers out of [[Slade]] (Note: This should be impossible, so if you do it...))
*HardcoreDwarvenMasterpieceArtifactBonus: Build the fortress at the top of the tower that the goblins have to try to get to.

== Traveling Circus ==
Travel across the world, building megaprojects like pyramids or bridges.

'''Difficulty''': The larger the world, the higher.

'''Usefulness''': ''None at all''.
* Bonus: travel around and actually release [[HFS|the circus]] on every embark. Needless to say, this is the most [[fun]] option. You may consider making sure the clowns get their share of fun, if you want your circus to happen more than once...

==Underground forest==
{{main|Tree farming}}
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground perpetual motion power plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors then fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. artificial intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in, or it will become very [[fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

Bonus: Make an ACTUAL Vomitorium for this - Build a [[meeting hall]] with a [[grate]]d floor. Let [[cave adaptation]] set in, then open the place up for the most extravagant and lavish of parties every 3~4 years! Those will be some Armok grade hangovers though....

==Water tower==
This functions much like real life: Lifting water above ground level creates pressure, allowing buried pipes to deliver water to any elevation below the top of the tower. This is smarter, faster, and cheaper than a map-spanning raised aqueduct. A pump stack at the river, raising water into a sealed, pressurized U-bend, can deliver large volumes of water to whatever level you want, very quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. No harder than any other pump stack to design, but high pressure can amplify minor errors into abandon-worthy disasters. You could conceivably divert the river into your fort. Be sure to make an off-switch.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Once the pump stack is operating, you no longer need to be anywhere near your water source.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Werewolf clock==
The changing of the werewolf is the most reliable indicator of the passing of seasons. For precisely one day per full moon, he will go berserk and trigger standard pressure plates.

'''Difficulty:''' You will get a were sooner or later. Getting him pitted in the right spot without havoc is the hard part.

'''Usefulness:''' Low/None. As of Premium, the lunar phase is permanently affixed to the user interface, making a werewolf clock frankly redundant.

*Bonus: Make the werewolf do most of the work himself.

==Zombie thunderdome==
Embark in a [[surroundings#Evil|reanimating]] biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
*CavernFunBonus: Channel the bottom into a cavern and let your zombies hunt [[forgotten beast|the wonderful creatures there]].
**BonusFunBonus: Let them hunt [[Demon|Clowns]] as well.
*ZombieDwarfBonus: Ignore the suggestion above and dump dwarven corpses in anyway.

==Zombie shooting gallery==

In a reanimating biome, build a holding room for your undead, wall it off with fortifications. In the adjacent (accessible) area, build an archery range and order your archery squads to train there. Your marksdwarves will go to their scheduled archery training and whenever a zombie is raised, they'll switch focus from the boring old archery target and instead shoot down the undead. Once the zombies are dead, they'll return to regular shooting practice until the corpses rise again. The raised corpses cannot attack through fortifications and thus cause no unhappy thoughts from seeing them, but will spook haulers trying to collect errant socks from the shooting range.

A viable (if finicky) alternative to a reanimating biome could be a [[necromancer]]. This has the benefit of being more controllable, but comes with the threat of [[intelligent undead]] and their abilities. Most would be relatively harmless or a minor inconvenience, but some are potentially lethal to your dwarves. Whether or not this is a downside depends on how many corpses you have available to restock the gallery.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. The difficulty lies in finding a source of permanent undead, the actual construction is trivial.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. This setup significantly increases the skill gain from bolts used by training dwarves, since every bolt shot at a zombie counts as combat action, giving much more experience. The scheme works without any supervision once set up.

{{Category|Design}}
[[ru:Stupid dwarf trick]]

Advanced entity position mechanics

2026-04-28T09:27:55Z

Silverwing235: /* Land Holders */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}

= Introduction =

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=182239.0 Discussion thread on the forum]

This page documents observed and tested behavior of entity positions in Dwarf Fortress that is not fully described elsewhere on the wiki. It focuses on advanced interactions between position tokens, including appointment, succession, election, and responsibility handling, across both civilization-level and site-level entities.

The mechanics described here are based on empirical testing in world generation and fortress mode, supplemented where necessary by raw analysis. In several cases, the game’s behavior is determined by evaluation order and interaction between multiple tags, rather than by individual tokens in isolation.

This page is intended for modders and advanced players who are designing or debugging custom entity position structures. It does not restate basic position mechanics, but instead highlights edge cases, non-obvious interactions, and behaviors that may appear inconsistent or undocumented.

Unless stated otherwise, the described behavior applies to current versions of the game and may differ from older releases.

==What is an entity? What is a position?==
An [[entity]] is an organizational structure that can have relationships with other entities, usually known as a [[civilization]] or a "[[site]] government" in the game, but ie. merchant [[company|companies]], [[Mercenary#Mercenary_Orders|mercenary orders]], [[guild|guilds]], [[religion|religious organizations]], bandits and necromancer towers are also entities (and necromancer towers use the same entity type as "site governments"). An entity can have positions - in most cases, these are hardcoded and generated by the game, but as for civilizations and sites, the [[raw file]]s can be customised.

A position is a special relationship between a unit and an entity. The unit holding a position has a larger influence over that entity than other citizens. Positions are mostly known as [[nobles]], but in this article. the technical term is used.

=Position levels (Site/Civ) and their interaction=
There are two basic types of positions that are customizable: '''civ(ilization)''' level and '''site level'''. Positions with the tag [SITE] are at site level, positions without the tag [SITE] are at 'civ level'. These two types of nobles can be considered '''loosely related systems'''. There are a few places where they can interact with each other.

Civ-level positions are in charge of the civilization as a whole, managing national [[trade]], laws, and [[war]]s. These are, for example, the vanilla [[monarch]], [[diplomat]] and [[general]]. (Note that the general doesn't really do anything, except creation of additional pets in world-gen for the general and possibly raising the animal training knowledge of the civilization to "general familiarity".)

'''[LAND_HOLDER]''' nobles are also positions at civ-level. These units are members of the national government, but have gained authority over some land or site. Once they do, they move to that place, but their position is still regarded as a civ-level position.

Site-level position holders are members of a site government (subsidiary to the civilization), and manage local affairs in that location. These are, for example, the [[mayor]], the [[sheriff]] and the [[broker]].

==Table of interaction between different position levels==
In this table, the possible interactions between different position levels are summarized.
The header row shows the positions defining the tokens.

The left column shows the position type that is referred to.
Example:
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! LAND_HOLDER
|-
| civilization
| (baron is) APPOINTED_BY:MONARCH
|}
color coding: 
* Exists in vanilla
* Possible with mods
* Not possible
* possible to some extent.
* not yet fully investigated.
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! Civilization
! SITE
! LAND_HOLDER
! CONQUERED_SITE

|-
| Civilization
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(1)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(2)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY '''(3)''' COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(4)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| LAND_HOLDER
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(6)''' SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(5)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(7)''' SUCCESSION '''(8)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| CONQUERED_SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
|}

Remarks:
# Works only in world-gen, if a unit with that civ-position is present at the site.
# Works only in world-gen, the site-position holding unit will then move to the capital.
# Is completely ignored
# Works only in world-gen.
# Works only in world-gen.
# Won't appear at all
# This is necessary for the landholder chain to work properly, it doesn’t work otherwise.
# This works only outside of the landholder chain, so when landholders are simply regarded as civ-level nobles. might also work in world-gen
#

== Other interactions ==

Unfortunately, interactions with positions of other entities don't seem possible, such as APPOINTED_BY: HIGH_PRIEST. With [VARIABLE_POSITIONS], positions are automatically created with codes like CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, but interaction with these positions don't seem to work, either. For more info on those, see [[Variable positions]]

=General=

==Civ-level nobles living at your site==
Nobles from your civilization can come to live at your fortress. This happens in vanilla with landholders such as [[Baron]], [[Count]] and [[Duke]], with the Monarch, but sometimes also with non-landed LAND_HOLDERS.

When a civ-level noble becomes a [[citizen]] at your location, their position is shown among the site-level positions in your [[nobles screen]]. They appear to function as a site-level noble. They may have [[demand]]s, [[mandate]]s, [[squad]]s and the like. They can appoint nobles at the site-level.

Even if they have certain site related [RESPONSIBILITY]ies, they will not do the tasks that go with them.

==Fortress mode, world-gen and their differences==
Their are a few differences in how positions function between fortress mode (normal play mode) and the world generation (world-gen).

In '''fortress mode''', the player has some control over the appointment of nobles, limited by elections, automatic filled-in positions and succession rules. Pre-fortress mode, which is referred to as '''world-gen''', the game will always attempt to assign nobles whenever possible. It is subjected to the same rules as in fortress-mode, but there are some exceptions. In '''[[World activities]]''', which is the thing that happens in the world while you play fortress mode, it seems as if the same rules are applied as fortress mode.

A difference between player-fortress-mode and world-gen, is causes by visibility (see below). Positions that are not visible by the player and thus not available for assignment, will be available in world-gen and will thus be automatically assigned.

In fortress mode, a position that is both [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY], cannot be appointed by the player and is also not elected, and can thus not be filled. But in world-gen sites however, these positions are automatically filled.

Positions with [AS_NEEDED] are almost never created and filled in world-gen (depending on their [RESPONSIBILITY]ies), but can always be used in player mode.

A position can, in fortress mode, be filled by the same unit. A unit can gain multiple positions in fortress mode, for example because of [[elections]]. This will not happen in world-gen mode: a unit can only have one position. See also remarks on 'embark' and 'Losing a position'.

In world-gen, [SUCCESSION] between civ-levels and [SITE-]levels may happen. This will not happen in fortress mode, or even off-site in [[World activities]].

In fortress mode, premature SUCCESSION may happen. This will not happen in world-gen mode.

==Units holding multiple positions in multiple entities==
A unit can hold multiple positions in its civilisation or in its site-entity, however in world-gen a unit will not hold multiple positions in one site-entity or in one civilisation (note that in world-gen a unit can hold multiple variable positions of the same entity, if the entity is ie. an outcast group). It is however possible - in world-gen - for a unit to hold multiple positions as long as the positions belong to different civilizations / site-entities (ie. it is possible for a militia commander of a site-entity to later on also become a monarch of the parent civilization, while staying a militia commander), if a unit holds a position of two different site-entities (the unit will usually have left one of the groups, without relinquishing the position). Only at player-managed sites can units be holding multiple positions (of the site-entity) at once. It is currently unknown, whether it is possible in world-gen for a unit to have a civ-level position in two different civilisations (but it probably is possible, as a a unit can belong to multiple civilizations and a unit usually does not relinquish a position, when the unit gets another position, as long as the entities of both positions are not the same).

In world-gen, if there are too many positions to be filled, they simply stay empty until more units are available. E.G, a unit at a site might inherit a civ-level position and still remain a member of the local government. When this happens however, they move to the capital. If a unit gains a new position, either inherited or otherwise, it drops the previous one (of that civilisation or site-entity) - the unit will not drop any positions unrelated to the entity of the new position (ie. a CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR will not relinquish that position, if the unit becomes the ruler of a civilization and a militia commander will also not necessarily relinquish the position, if the unit becomes also the monarch of the corresponding civilization). If a unit assumes a civ-position in fortress mode, it leaves the current position.

If a unit holds the same (site-)position multiple times, it has no additional effect.

If a unit holds multiple different positions of the same entity, it has all those positions' responsibilities and properties, stacked up. Presumably, the demands for those combined positions are determined by the highest.

A unit holding a position with a succession token can be assigned another position with a (different) succession token.

A unit holding a position with a squad-position cannot hold another squad-position. It is dropped from the first, when it gets its second assigned.
A unit holding a position with a succession token cannot be assigned to a squad-position - the unit is simply not available. It works the other way around, though.

=Specific Tags and functions=
==[PRECEDENCE]==
The first defined position with precedence of 1 counts as the ruler of the civ. See also: [[Position_token#PRECEDENCE|PRECEDENCE]].

If the precedence is omitted or has a negative value, the game sets 0 as precedence, which seems to have no effect whatsoever.

When a unit has multiple positions, the name of the position with the highest rank in precedence is shown behind the unit's name.

If you omit precedence entirely, or set it to [PRECEDENCE:NONE], the position name will not be shown after the unit’s name. Your *Urist Mason* will remain simply *Mason*. This can be useful for positions that are unimportant or purely functional. The position will also not appear in the civilisation overview of your site on the world map. The position name is shown in messages, but remains hidden on the nobles screen as well. To make it visible there, use [LAND_NAME].

==[RESPONSIBILITY]ies==
Both civ and [SITE] positions can carry responsibilities. However, not all responsibilities are active for both types: some function only for civ positions, others only for site positions. When a civ noble arrives at a site and takes up residence, they do not perform responsibilities that are intended for SITE nobles. As a result, these responsibilities neither trigger their associated tasks nor unlock related game mechanics. For example, a civ-level manager living in a fortress will not perform management duties there and doesn't unlock the management-screen, even with an assigned office.
This behavior applies to the following [SITE]-level responsibilities:
* [RESPONSIBILITY:ACCOUNTING]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:BUILD_MORALE]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_ENFORCEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MANAGE_PRODUCTION]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MEET_WORKERS]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:TRADE] (functions differently)
Other responsibilities may be affected as well, but have not yet been fully tested.

===World-gen effects of the [RESPONSIBILITY] of available positions ===
It is possible to cause civs and individual sites to change their behavior substantially when they reach a certain size, by controlling nobles.
* If a site can only appoint a position with [MILITARY_GOALS] after reaching a particular size, that site will not send armies on missions until the required size is reached.
* A civ-level [LAW_MAKING] position is required for the civilization to have any kind of cohesion. Without it, sites will be constantly embroiled in territorial disputes and civil wars will be commonplace.
* [MILITARY_STRATEGY] positions go out and tame wild animals. This makes your civ gain those animals as domesticated and also brings them in sieges.
* The [[Personality_facet|Personality]] of the position's holder determines how they lead the civ.

===[DELIVERS_MESSAGES]===
The only [AS_NEEDED]-position that is created in worldgen based on responsibility is that of the site-level responsibility [DELIVERS_MESSAGES].

===Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats===
Civ-positions with the responsibility [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS] ([[Outpost_Liaison|Outpost Liaison]]s) will meet with the site-noble who has responsibility for [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] and the highest rank of precedence (i.e. the lowest precedence value). Usually this is the [[Expedition_leader|Expedition leader]].

Once a [LAND_HOLDER] is assigned to the site, civ-positions with the responsibility [MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS] ([[Diplomat]]s) will meet with '''civ'''-level nobles present at the site who have the [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] responsibility. If multiple eligible nobles are available, one is selected at random. If no eligible noble is present, the diplomat leaves angrily. If the landholder is no longer present at the site, diplomats will not arrive at all.

It appears that Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats are chosen for a diplomatic mission based on availability. When multiple candidates exist, the position defined last in the raws is most often selected.

===[TRADE]===
Civ-level nobles with [TRADE] will arrive with the caravan, just as the Outpost Liaison. Their behavior is no longer active in the vanilla game, but the mechanics are still present. See [[40d:Guild_representative|Guild representative]] for more details. This civ-noble will only meet with the SITE noble with [TRADE], usually the [[Broker]].

If two civ-nobles exist with both [TRADE] and [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS], they both arrive at the same time. Even if both tokens are assigned to a single position, if more than one instance of that position exists, two of them will arrive. However in that case, somehow the elevation of the site and appointment of landholder isn't offered.

If the SITE-noble they intend to meet has both [TRADE] and [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], only one meeting will proceed and the other is cancelled. However, when two SITE-nobles are available, each with either [TRADE] or [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], both meetings will proceed and both civ-nobles will attempt to negotiate a trade agreement. It is not known what happens if these agreements are accepted or refused.

In the trade depot, the last defined position with the [TRADE] responsibility is shown as broker. However when requesting a trader, the first defined position with [TRADE] will actually go there to do the trade.

==[NUMBER]==
A position might be defined with a number. In that case, as many as defined can be available. If the positions become available, in world-gen and when embarking, they are all filled-in completely.

If the ruling position (with PRECEDENCE of 1) has a NUMBER higher than 1, a random unit of the ones holding these positions is shown as ruler in the embark screen.

A [NUMBER] of 0 (zero) has the same effect as 1.

===Automatic spreading of assumed, non-singular positions===
If there are civ positions that have a NUMBER higher then '1' and which are assumed (not APPOINTED_BY or ELECTED) but are '''not DUTY_BOUND''', these are automatically spread among the civilisation, based on population. If there are a number of '''20''' available slots of that position, they spread among a civilization with a combined population of, for example, 1000 of which your fortress has 100 (10%), '''2''' of your fortress' citizens will assume that position.
This may probably also work with elected and appointed positions, but that may be depending on the death of the current holders and this needs more testing. Assumption works within a day, anyway.

===[AS_NEEDED]===
These positions can be created automatically by the game in world-gen. This, however, only works with:
* [LAND_HOLDER]'s
* squad commanders (needs more testing)
* Messengers at sites

For all other types of positions, they're not created in world-gen, even if they are defined with RESPONSIBILITY's. For example, even in war, the game wouldn't create a MILITARY_GOALS position, if they have AS_NEEDED as number.

However, in fortress mode / player mode, these positions can be created by the player at will.

Positions with AS_NEEDED need to be created first, before any symbols are assignable as 'symbols' (objects) for the position holder to carry or wear.

Positions with AS_NEEDED cannot be created and then ELECTED in fortress mode. It only works with APPOINTED_BY.

==[REPLACED_BY], [REQUIRES_POPULATION], [REQUIRES_MARKET]==

The token [REPLACED_BY:position] means that once the replacing position meets its requirements for activation, the 'to-be-replaced' position will disappear. This is defined in [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or [REQUIRES_MARKET]. The tags are closely related to each other and seem to only have a meaningful function if combined. Nobles with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size. Nobles with [REQUIRES_MARKET] are only activated in market sites, such as fortresses or towns. [REQUIRES_POPULATION] and [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be combined, activating that position once both requirements are met.

The [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be used to differentiate positions between hamlets and hillocks, and larger sites. IThe market always is build the year after the site is founded. So a position that is to be replaced, will be gone immediately.

The [REQUIRES_POPULATION]-tag works on the civ-level as well as on site-level, but those systems are in this mechanic strictly separated. Site-level positions cannot be replaced by civ-level positions and visa versa. This makes sense, because they both depend on their own population-count. When using REQUIRES_POPULATION on civ-level, it counts the total population of the civilisation.

See also: [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Evaluation_of_Positions|Evaluation of positions]]

===Effect of replacement (and on [LAND_HOLDER]s)===

Replacement is immediate and complete - the current holding unit loses the position, even before SUCCESSION_BY_POSITION rules are applied. A position with a number of 1 will replace all the slots of a position with a higher number of slots.

Even if the next position is available but not visible, replacement still takes place. If a position is replaced, it is completely gone - it cannot be appointed, succeeded, elected or assumed any longer.
The unit immediately loses its position.

In legends, replacement is mentioned as: "(unit name) ceased to be (position name)" The replacement of an AS_NEEDED position empties the position's slot forever. In fortress mode, it may seem as if you can create new slots and appoint new units in the nobles screen, but this is reversed as soon as you close the window.

The landholder chain uses [REPLACED_BY] differently. It does not clear the position completely, but uses it for succession to the next level's position. [REPLACE_BY] is required to let that system work properly. This also means that the way in which landholders succeed (replace + as_needed) does not work in any other way.

Replacement between LAND_HOLDERS and other site- or civ positions does not work in any way. Only the vanilla replacement sequence between levels of LAND_HOLDERs does work. If the token is omitted for landholders, the landholder chain is broken, so replacement is required for the landholder system to work.

[REQUIRES_POPULATION] also does not work for [LAND_HOLDER], when you set [NUMBER] to 1. The position is not created when the required population is reached.

===What doesn't work===

'''Attention: If a position cannot be appointed, for example because of 'mutual appointment', it still exists according to replacement mechanics and will replace other positions if so defined. If a certain position(a) will be replaced by the baron's assistant, which can only be appointed by the [LAND_HOLDER] baron, than that position(s) still will be replaced from the start of the game, even if no baron or their assistant is ever present.'''

A position that is replaced by a somehow non-fillable position is still replaced. This counts for mutual-appointing positions, replacement by not-yet-assigned landholders, replacement by AS_NEEDED positions, or replacement by not-yet-appointed positions.

Replacement does not work if the replaced position is a [LAND_HOLDER], even with civ-positions. In that case, the LAND_HOLDER's position is not replaced. It does not matter if AS_NEEDED is used, or a fixed number, and it also does not matter what type of position the replacer is. So this only works (correctly) with positions that become available by REQUIRES_POPULATION.

==[CONQUERED_SITE]==

This tag determines which position is used to assign a [[Forced administrator]].

In legends mode, this is visible as an event describing the reconquest of the site: a new group is formed and the forced administrator is installed as its ruler.

All positions defined with this tag are assigned during this process, meaning multiple positions can be appointed at once.

The holder of a position marked with [CONQUERED_SITE] cannot appoint any other [SITE] positions.

Combining [CONQUERED_SITE] with [SITE] causes the position to function both as a forced administrator and as a normal site position available in fortress mode. However, this provides no meaningful additional mechanics and is effectively inferior to using [SITE] alone:
* [APPOINTED_BY] lines are completely ignored, meaning that the roles are automatically assumed.
* [SUCCESSION] is likewise ignored.
* the [CONQUERED_SITE]-position cannot appoint other [CONQUERED_SITE], [SITE] or combined positions.

There have been remarks that reclaiming a fortress is unplayable because of the lack of regular nobles. Unfortunately, it seems that it can't be fixed by modding.

=Availability and visibility=
==Availability of (new) positions==
Warning: Do not mistake "availability" for "visibility"!

Of all the possible positions existing in your site's entity, there may only be some available.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_MARKET] will only appear in "large" sites (which may have different rules for different site types). This tag has no effect in fort mode.
* Positions that are appointed by positions that have an AS_NEEDED number. The appointable positions only become available after an appointer position-slot is created. This works also on civ-level. If a position is appointed by a Land-holder, it only becomes available, when that level of landholder is created.

Only the replaced positions are culled and are no longer available.
A position that requires a certain population will become available, even if it doesn't have [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED]. In that case, see 'automatic assignment' and 'assumption'

In fortress mode, in some cases 'succession' is evaluated immediately after a position becomes available. See: Succession.
==Visibility of positions==
A position might be available, but can still be invisible for the player in the [[nobles screen]]. The positions with their respective holders are visible for players:
* All site-positions that are already filled-in (even if they could not be re-filled-in considering current conditions)
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in site position
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in civ position, when that civ positions holder becomes a citizen of your fortress.
* Civ positions of units that are also a citizen of your fortress.
If a position becomes available, for example because a certain pop number has been reached, or if it is available from the start(like expedition leader), as long as it cannot be appointed, it still is INVISIBLE for the player.

It might strike someone as odd if a position becomes filled automatically in fortress mode when that position is not even visible. This might be the case if the current holder of a non-appointable position dies or succeeds another position. Regardless of player visibility, these positions will be automatically filled in if the necessary requisitions are met. It might happen with the expedition leader.

A situation with a non-visible but available position, is for example when a position is solely appointed by the expedition leader, when the expedition leader's position is left vacant. It can no longer be appointed by the player and is invisible. Then, it gets automatically assumed, proving that the position still was available.

A position that is both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] is visible, but players cannot interact with it.

={{text anchor|Evaluation of Positions}}=
The game does not continuously check whether positions should become available, elected or be [REPLACE_BY]. This is well-known behavior—for example with the [[mayor]], who does not appear automatically when the required population ([REQUIRES_POPULATION]) is reached. Instead, positions must somehow be evaluated. This applies in several other situations as well

'''Cases that require a trigger:'''
* Election of a newly created position
* Election after the current holder dies
* Automatic assumption of a newly created position (this may take up to a day)
* New citizens (such as migrants) considering available positions
* Premature succession of a newly created position

'''Cases that do not wait for a trigger:'''
* Succession following the death of the previous holder
* Automatic assumption of existing positions that have become vacant

'''Triggers that cause the game to reevaluate noble positions:'''
* Succession of a [SITE]-position due to the death of the current holder
* [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Election_Day|Election Day]]
* Automatic assumption of a [SITE]-position that becomes vacant
* (Re)assigning any site position manually
* Settlement elevation on the LAND_HOLDER track (e.g. gaining a [[Baron]] or [[Count]])

=Gaining a position=
There are several ways a unit can gain a position:
* Appointment: A unit is appointed by another unit or by the player.
* Election: A unit is elected by and among the members of the entity
* Assumption: A position is neither elected or appointed: a random unit just simply 'takes' the position
* Succession: a unit is the valid successor of this position(A), either by its current position(B) or because they are that position(A)-holder's heir.

Available positions will automatically be assigned to a random civ member when a new site/civ is created.

==Who can take a position==

* If so defined, a unit needs to be the right caste and/or class - it does not seem to work with creature types.
* The unit needs to be an adult member of the site or its parent civ's government; that is also CAN_LEARN or INTELLIGENT (SLOW_LEARNER cannot take positions) or otherwise is able to think.

==Appointment==

Positions that have an [APPOINTED_BY:position] token require that position to exist, to be available and appointed. Any position that is APPOINTED_BY can be appointed if the appointer's position is filled in.
For site-positions to be appointed, it is required that the appointer is present at that location.

If the appointing unit is temporarily not present, or if that position is not filled, positions depending on it cannot be appointed. This is the case with [[militia captains]], when the [[militia commander]] is on a [[mission]].

A site position cannot appoint a civ position ''or'' LAND_HOLDER in any way whatsoever.

Civ-level positions can appoint other civ-level positions and site-level positions can appoint other site-level positions.

Contrary to what has been said elsewhere, civ-level nobles also can appoint site-level nobles. They need to be at the site to do so. Landholders can appoint both site-level and civ-level nobles. These systems are therefore not as separate as was assumed.

'''Mutual appointment''' cannot take place. If these are the only requisites of the position, then the positions will never appear or get filled. These unfillable positions can be put to good use, for example, to replace a position that is no longer needed without creating a new one.

'''Self appointment''' doesn't normally work. If you have a position that is only appointed by itself, it is never appointed and also cannot be assumed. However, if the position has a number higher than 1, and is filled by multiple units (for example by another position that is now empty), than those units can re-assign or appoint each other from that their shared position.

If an APPOINTED_BY token refers to a non-existing position's code, the effects are as if the appointment token doesn't exist at all.

===Automatic appointment in world-gen and on the civ level===

Outside of fortress mode, the game will always attempt to appoint nobles whenever possible, as long as these positions are '''available''', even if they are invisible to the player.
It shows this message in legends: "(unit name) has been appointed to the position of (position name)"

In world-gen, all positions become available and are automatically appointed, taking population- and appointment-requirements into consideration.

Positions that are REPLACED_BY are culled and won't be filled.

If a citizen of your fortress holds a civ-level position that can appoint another civ-level position, the appointment will happen automatically and without player intervention. It may happen that another citizen of your fortress is appointed by that unit, creating civ-level position holders in your fortress, but it is unknown what is required to force this effect.

===Manual appointments by players in fortress mode===
In fortress mode, the positions that need to be appointed stay empty on embark. and it is the player's job to appoint those. A player can appoint a unit to any available position, according to the hereabove mentioned conditions. The player takes the role of the automatic appointment-system, but has no direct control over elections, successions and replacement. There are some differences in what is possible at world-gen sites and at player-controlled sites.

* A position that is appointed by a unit present as a fortress citizen, can be appointed, re-appointed or left vacant. This means also by civ-level nobles living as a citizen in your fortress; not when they are only visiting, like the diplomat.
* A position whose appointing positions are all either vacant or [REPLACED_BY] can no longer be appointed. If the position is already filled, it cannot be reappointed or vacated; the current holder simply remains in office.
* A position that is APPOINTED_BY a unit present as the land_holder of your site, can be appointed, reassigned or left vacant.
* A position that has SUCCESSION BY_HEIR or BY_POSITION can 'initially' be appointed and also re-appointed or left vacant, but as soon as the [[nobles]] screen closes, ''it can no longer be replaced or left vacant''. From then on, the succession-rules determine who gains that position when the current holder loses the position. This works even if the SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION-position is vacant or replaced.
* A position that is ELECTED nor APPOINTED_BY, can always be (re-)appointed by the player. This is the case with the [[Expedition leader]]. If it is left vacant however, it cannot be appointed, but will be assumed shortly after.
* A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY, cannot be appointed by the player. Contrary to world-gen sites, its slot is visible, but it doesn't show the +-sign. This is either by AS_NEEDED or by a fixed number. Even if the position somehow gets filled (re)assignment is never possible
* A player can appoint a number of units to a position, as much as the NUMBER token dictates. If it is AS_NEEDED, the player may create as many slots as they like, also contrary to world-gen sites.
* A civ-position can never be appointed, even if the appointing civ noble is a citizen of your fortress. A civ position also never can be re-assigned or left vacant, would that position be defined as appointed by a site-position.

==Election==
Read more in [[Elections]]. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) has been elected to the position of (position name)"

In worldgen, there is no functional difference between ELECTED and non-appointment, except that elected nobles tend to have high social skills and/or skills related to the position, while non-elected ones are assigned randomly. See: [[Elections]]

A succession goes before an election.

A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY never gets elected. Even if the appointees' position somehow gets filled, (re)-elections won't happen. So, it doesn't seem possible to have an elected position become available when a certain other position becomes filled.

An ELECTED civ-(or LAND_HOLDER) position at your site will never be (re)-elected in fortress mode. So real (re-)election only works with SITE-positions.

=== {{text anchor|Election Day}} ===
Election Day takes place on the 17th of Summer. On this day, a full reevaluation is performed, including all currently elected positions, which are subject to re-election. Contrary to the information on [[Elections]], nothing occurs at the start of a season.

Positions that are both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] will not be re-elected on Election Day when assigned through [SUCCESSION].

=== Election Eligiblity ===
Any citizen may stand for election. Eligibility cannot be restricted using [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS], or [GENDER]. Units currently having a [SUCCESSION]-position even may be elected for a position with a [SQUAD]-token, which is otherwise impossible to assign or even succeed.

=== Skills ===
In elections, skills are taken into account for the tokens of the position which is elected.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Relevant skills per position token
|-
! Position Token !! Relevant skills
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#DELIVER_MESSAGES|[DELIVER_MESSAGES]]] || [[Ambusher]], [[Observer]] and [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ACCOUNTING|[ACCOUNTING]]] || [[Record_keeper|Record keeper]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ESPIONAGE|[ESPIONAGE]]] || [[Schemer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#HEALTH_MANAGEMENT|[HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]]] || [[Diagnostician|Diagnostician]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS|[MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MANAGE_PRODUCTION|[MANAGE_PRODUCTION]]] || [[Organizer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MEET_WORKERS|[MEET_WORKERS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS|[RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RELIGION|[RELIGION]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TAME_EXOTICS|[TAME_EXOTICS]]] || [[Animal_trainer|Animal trainer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TRADE|[TRADE]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]] and [[Appraiser|Appraiser]]
|-
| [[Position_token#SQUAD|[SQUAD]]]-token || [[Tactician]] and [[Leader]]
|}

==Assumption==

A position that is not APPOINTED_BY nor ELECTED, or is appointed by positions that are not available in your site or civ, will be assumable by a random dwarf. If it has responsibilities that require certain skills, then these are taken into consideration on embark, but not when the position is assumed during the actual game.

Normally, one to three units will take the into consideration to assume a position. Most of the time when there are multiple open positions, only a single unit will assume all of them. However, a position that has REJECTED_CREATURE, REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CREATURE or ALLOWED_CLASS will be filled with all different units, even if the creature or class mentioned is irrelevant. It seems that this forces the game to loop over all the available units.

The message that is shown in Legends mode is: "(unit name) has assumed the position of (position name)". This may also take place in fortress mode, which then shows this message to the player.

If an assumable position becomes empty, it will be assumed within a day. This is the case when you leave the position of expedition-leader vacant. It also happens with entities.

Assumable positions that become empty will not be assumed if that position has a valid [SUCCESSION] -successor. In that case, the successor inherits the position.

Even positions that are somehow invisible because they cannot be directly APPOINTED_BY players, can be assumed.

When you embark, the assumable positions are automatically assigned to a random unit. If there are multiple of these positions at embark, they all are assigned to the same unit. If there are enough positions available, multiple units may gain a position, but often no more than three different ones.

If a dwarf in fortress mode assumes a position, that already has another position, it will leave the current position empty. When that position also is assumed, then this will continue until all positions have a dwarf appointed to them, with no other position.

A unit that already has a position with a [SUCCESSION] token won't take assumable positions into consideration that have a [SQUAD] token. This can be used by the modder to prevent unwanted loss of current positions.

A position that has an appointer which got replaced because of REPLACED_BY, will not become assumable. Also, positions that have an AS_NEEDED appointer that is not yet filled (or ever), will also not be assumed.

==Succession==

If a position-holder dies or advances to a new position via succession, the position will be granted to another unit based on the [SUCCESSION] tag. If they have an heir or the succeeding position exists, that unit will be assigned. If not, a new one will be appointed according to the usual rules. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) being the rightful heir, has inherited the position of (position name)"

The succeeding creature will also lose its previous position. When succession is defined using BY_POSITION, the unit naturally loses the referenced position. However, it also loses any other positions it may hold. If a unit could simultaneously inherit multiple positions, the last-defined succession overrides the earlier one, clearing the previously acquired position

Succession works both at site-level and at civ-level, both in world-gen and in fortress-mode. Succession by position on the civ-level is also visible and functional in fortress-mode. If both civ-level nobles are a citizen of your fortress, succession is applied visually. Vanilla example: The [[druid]] is succeeded by the [[acolyte]]. This means that as soon as the druid dies, the acolyte takes over.

When a position that is succeeded by position becomes available, immediately it is checked if a position-successor is available and the position is filled with that unit. Even if this is an [ELECTED] position, succession goes first. When elections eventually do happen, succession plays no role.

It is possible to assign multiple levels of [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] in different positions, creating a line of positions where the death of one causes all those "below" them to advance.

A position can have multiple tokens with position-succession. It looks to be random which one is used. It is not always:
* The first or last defined token
* The first or last appointed unit
* the oldest or youngest
* one with a higher or lower precedence
* a unit with relevant skills

When a position is defined with a Succession-type, that unit cannot have another position that has a Squad-type. If the succession-position itself has a squad, than it can be assigned another position with a squad, but then it will loose the previous succesion position. See further details by "Squad"

Assumed positions can also be succeeded by position, if the current holder dies.

If the successor is an AS_NEEDED position, the used unit will leave a vacant position-slot on its removal by succession. This empty slot remains a real slot, which will only be cleaned up if you (un)appoint a unit to this position-series. It isn't cleaned up after regular position validation.

A civ-level position of a unit living at your site might be inherited by a unit holding that does not currently live at your site. This, unfortunately, moves that position to a unit off site. This may also happen with the landholder of your site, for example when it is succeeded by another civ-level position. This currently poses an unsolved challenge.

===Eligibility for succession===
Succession is restricted by the tokens [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS] and [GENDER].

===Site and civ combined succession===

Succession can work when combining site positions with civ-level positions or land_holders, but only in world-gen mode. In fortress mode, it only works with combining the same level of nobles, with Landholders regarded as civ-level. So, in fortress mode, a site's position cannot succeed a landholder's position and it cannot succeed another type of civ-level position, and vice versa.

This won't work even if the positions:
* are AS_NEEDED or having a fixed number.
* Are LAND_HOLDERs.

===Succession [BY_HEIR]===

When a heir is needed for succession, all children and then other relatives are validated. They cannot take the position if their status does not allow it, for example if they have become a member of another civilisation. See: "Who can take a position". If the unit has no valid heir on that location, the position may go to a unit living on another site. This may cause the title of Landholder of some land to be inherited by a unit living somewhere else. That might be a problem, because then you lose your landholders.

===Premature Succession===

There are cases where [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] is applied prematurely: at the moment a position is first created and becomes appointable or assumable, rather than after a current holder leaves. In this situation, the succession mechanism assigns a holder immediately, without any player interaction.

When a position becomes available for the first time, the game checks whether a valid successor-by-position exists. If so, that unit is assigned instantly. It can affect positions that would normally be appointed or elected by the player, causing succession to trigger before the player has any opportunity to intervene.

This behavior occurs only in Fortress mode, but can be applied both on [SITE]-positions as well in civ-positions. That last one however is a bit harder to control. Example: [[Advanced entity position mechanics#The Archduke|The Archduke]]

This premature succession only occurs the first time a position becomes available (i.e. when it is created and becomes appointable or assumable). Even if the position remains vacant and the conditions for succession improve later, premature succession will not trigger again. From that point onward, only normal succession rules apply.

Using premature succession, a position that has [ELECTED], [APPOINTED_BY], or both, can be filled directly.
Notably, positions that combine [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY] are normally impossible to fill through regular mechanics. Premature succession bypasses both election and appointment entirely, making this combination uniquely reachable through this mechanism.

No initial election takes place, and no subsequent elections will ever occur for that position. Succession always takes precedence over election, both in premature succession and in normal succession cases.

This behavior applies only in Fortress mode, not during world generation. World-gen uses simplified and more efficient mechanics, and this interaction does not occur there. Premature succession can affect both site-level and civilization-level positions.

====Multiple succession chains====

Multiple succession chains may be defined and are resolved in the order they appear in the raws.

If a position has both:
* a direct succession chain (A → C), and
* a multi-step chain (A → B → C),

and intermediate positions are vacant, resolution proceeds according to raw order. A common outcome is:
# The direct succession (A → C) is applied first, assigning A to C.
# The remaining chain then advances (A → B).
# If C still has empty slots, the final step (B → C) may occur.

If position B is already filled, behavior depends entirely on raw definition order:
* nothing may happen, or
* B may move to C first, followed by A moving to B.
====Working triggers====
Premature succession is triggered when a succeedable position is created under the following conditions:
* The succeedable position is created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] threshold is reached. This applies even if the position is not [APPOINTED_BY]. Premature succession takes priority over automatic assumption (e.g. the mayor declaring themselves within a day).
** The position must either be assumable or appointed by an existing position. When said appointer-position also just has been created, the premature succession of the succeedable position happenes, even when the appointer-position is empty.
* The succeedable position can be [APPOINTED_BY] another position of the same level (site or civ) that has just been created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] was reached.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another [SITE] [AS_NEEDED] position that has just been created and filled.
* The succeedable (site or civ) position is [APPOINTED_BY] the [LAND_HOLDER] position, which has just been created due to site elevation. This typically resolves when the diplomat leaves the map, at which point the landholder position becomes active.
* If all other requirements are met, premature succession can occur immediately after unpausing following embark, for positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION:7].

====Non-working triggers====
Premature succession does '''not''' occur in the following cases:
* An [AS_NEEDED] succeedable position slot is manually created by the player while its succeeding position is already filled. [AS_NEEDED] positions must always be appointed after creation.
* The succeeding position is filled after the succeedable position becomes available. The moment of creation is the decisive trigger; filling the source position later is too late.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another site or civ position with a fixed number of slots that has just been appointed. In this case, the succeedable position is just available for appointment itself, nothing more
* Any situation occurring during world generation.
* The succeeding position is [REPLACED_BY] the succeedable position. In this case, replacement removes the unit from the source position first, leaving no holder available for the succession mechanism to use.rst, leaving no holder available for the succession mechanism to use.
* The position is [APPOINTED_BY] a civ-level position, that just became a citizen of your fortress. It must be noted that those civ-level positions were active all that time and the succeedable position could be appointed even before. The monarchs arrival does not trigger premature succession

=Losing a position=

A unit can lose a position when:
* It dies
* It succeeds another position, even if it has nothing to do with the previous position.
* It is assigned to another SQUAD-holding position
* It is convicted of a crime.
* Another unit is ELECTED for the position
* It is convinced by an adventurer to give up its position, or is overthrown in a coup.
* Its position becomes replaced
* Another unit is appointed by the player, or the position is left vacant.
* It has assumed another position (of the same entity), as this always leaves the previous position vacant.

Note: A unit does not lose a position when the unit leaves the group (entity). Neither will a unit lose a position, if the corresponding entity is considered to be dead.

=Embarkment=
Two types of positions are automatically filled by embark.
* Positions without [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED] (assumable). All these positions, even with a NUMBER higher than 1, are all filled with one to three dwarves. Contrary to assumption, this doesn't take into account any limitations. REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CLASS, REJECTED_CREATURE, ALLOWED_CREATURE and GENDER are applied, but without the normal spread you may expect with assumptions. Also it doesn't look at [SUCCESSION] and [SQUAD] limitations.
* Positions that are elected are filled-in by the normal election rules.

Positions that have a defined appointer are never initially filled at embark.

All positions that don't have [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or with a [REQUIRES_POPULATION] of 7 or lower, will be available at embark.

=Land Holders=

A Landholder is a '''special civ-level noble''' who gets a certain piece of land to hold, when that land is elevated to a certain level, determined by the [LAND_HOLDER] tag, and by the landholder triggers in the game's settings. In vanilla, these are the baron, the count and the duke.

A unit gaining the landholder position does not migrate to that specific named land. In world-gen, they stay just where they are, probably at the capital. In fortress mode, you can suggest a citizen for the role. So for the time being that works.

Succession is then a real issue. If you use BY_HEIR, its solved when that landholder has children living at your site. But when its not the case, the title just goes to anyone randomly. Succession BY_POSITION works, but only in the civ-chain, and there's no way to guarantee a civ-holder is at your site at that time. Even with 'automatic spread' positions, it goes to one of them randomly.

==Functioning of the regular landholder chain==

The distinct difference between a landholder and a regular civ-level noble, is that a landholder may gain the position of landholder "of (sitename)" They are then seen as ruler of a particular site.

For a land_holder position to function as such, it has a few requirements:
* NUMBER:AS_NEEDED
* The first landholder-number of 1 is defined.
* No SITE (so civ) tag in that position.
*REPLACED_BY the next level landholder
If a landholder is defined with differentiating properties, it will function like a regular noble. A higher-up landholder that lacks the required tokens or connections will then not be used in elevation.

If a fortress meets the trigger for a new LAND_HOLDER tier when a caravan leaves, then the next time the outpost liaison or equivalent arrives, they will offer to make you an official colony, which will allow you to select all positions for that LAND_HOLDER level. Each time they appear, the outpost liaison will only promote your fortress one tier up the LAND_HOLDER track.

The landholder's LAND_NAME is not required for the functioning of this system. If omitted, messages will be shown with a more generic text.

==Appointment==

This mechanism differs from the regular methods of position management. It ignores all regular appointment- and election rules, so it more or less functions like automatic assignment. A landholder is, in vanilla, appointed by the monarch. Changing this doesn't seem to do anything. If they are appointed by a site-position, a not-yet-existing civ-position, or not appointed at all: the system keeps working as usual.

A landholder can appoint civ-positions and site positions. This works as expected: the positions only are appointed then when that landholder becomes available on civ-level or when he arrives at that site for site-level positions.

If your rank of landholder is the first of its rank in the realm, and is the sole appointer of some civ-position, then immediately as it gains the title, it will appoint the empty civ-slots. This may happen on your site, but the frequency and certainty is hard to determine.

==Succession==

Succession rules are applied to some extent:
* In world-gen it works according to succession rules, and site-positions can be used here. This means that a site position or a civ-position can inherit a landholder position, and vice versa.
* In fortress mode, once a landholder has been appointed, it then can inherit civ-level positions, and vice versa. This means that your baron can become king.
* Succession rules do not apply within the [LAND_HOLDER] chain; a count will not inherit a baron's land. This is because succession does not work well with the AS_NEEDED token.
* Premature succession works in fortress mode with landholders. If a unit gets a landholder's position and that landholder is the appointer of an as yet empty position, which is defined as succeeding from a third one, then the succession is immediately applied. The landholder themselves can even be the successor of a newly created position.
* A landholder's position is, in fortress mode, not successionable by a site-position or vice versa

===Impossibilities for succession by a site-position===
It would be very beneficial if the landholder can be succeeded by a [SITE]-position. So far, the following tests have not lead to positive results:
* making landholder and site-position both non-[DUTY_BOUND]
* make the site-position be [APPOINTED_BY] the landholder and/or the monarch
* give landholder and site-position [REJECTED_CREATURE]
* Let the monarch live at your site when succession could happen.
* Let the site-position be [REPLACED_BY] the landholder.

If the vanilla [SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]-tag is omitted, a seemingly random unit somewhere in the realm is assigned this position.

==Nomination==

The player is able to nominate a unit to become the LAND_HOLDER, but this only works with units of [LAND_HOLDER] level 1. The player can select all units, only limited by the PRECEDENCE of the current units' positions.

A unit that has a position with a PRECEDENCE lower or equal to that of the landholder's position, cannot be selected. This means that a baron (or count) from another site or the monarch cannot be selected, because their precedence is lower or equal.

The GENDER token does not work here: also units with the wrong gender (sorry) can be selected.

==Levels==
In mods, up to 10 levels of LAND_HOLDER may be defined.

If a landholder is replaced by a wrong landholder number (1 replaced by 3), then the number 3 is still correctly attached to the settlement.

If the current landholder has the highest available landholder number, then the next elevation will not happen - the diplomat will not elevate your fortress to a higher position, even if that position might be REPLACED_BY a lower landholder.

These chains do work:
* 1 -> 2a - > 2b -> 3
* 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4

These chains do not work:
* 2 -> 3 (need to start at 1)
* 1 -> 4 -> 2 -> 3 (stops after 4 as the highest)
* 1a -> 2, 1b -> 2 (only 1a and 2 work, 1b is not used)

==Moving landholders==

It may happen that a land-holder no longer lives at the site which they are the landholder of, specifically when the current landholder dies, leaving the title to an heir living somewhere else.

To prevent this from happening, you can make their succession from heir and make sure that their kids live at your site. Or, you can make their position succeeded by another civ position, and make it so that this civ position is somehow available on your site. But if multiple of these positions exist, it cannot be guaranteed that a citizen of your fortress will inherit the title.

In world gen, a landholder lacking the DUTY_BOUND-token will also move to the site they like, according to legends mode.

==Replacement by a generic civ-position==

If a landholder is replaced by an AS_NEEDED non-landholder civ-position, then this will work: the current landholder loses that title upon settlement-elevation and gains that civ-title. However, the civ-title lacks the landholder-property of being attached to the land. It will not show the name of the settlement alongside the position's name. So no "minister of Shovelmounts"

If a landholder is replaced by a general AS_NEEDED civ-position, that itself is also replaced by a generic AS_NEEDED civ-position, then firstly the elevation is executed and also the unit gains that new position. However, he immediately loses it, because an AS_NEEDED position that is replaced by another position can be filled initially, but units wont be able to hold that title.

==Landholder with fixed number==

A landholder's position that has a fixed number will be created and filled directly when the civilisation is born, so this position slot is then not available for the regular landholder-mechanic and will also not be used. That landholder will thus not be attached to a settlement.

It doesn't matter if the landholder's position is connected to the regular landholder's-chain with the REPLACE_BY token.

==Responsibilities==

When given a certain [RESPONSIBILITY], a landholder may function as a regular civ-level noble. If the position has [TRADE] or [OUTPOST_NEGOTIATING] responsibilities, then the landholder functions both as a diplomat and as an actual land holder. A landholder with the [MILITARY_STRATEGY] responsibility will travel around taming creatures in world-gen, according to legends mode.

Besides that, the responsibilities work the same as with any other on-site living position-holder, civ or otherwise.

=Military=
==Squad management==
In the vanilla game, the Squad interface only becomes available after a militia commander has been appointed. Until then, the window displays:{{DFtext|You must appoint somebody first to create a squad.}}

What’s surprising is how this is determined internally. In the entity raw definition, '''only the last two positions that include a [SQUAD] token are checked''' to decide whether the interface is accessible at all. As a result, if your hierarchy defines commanders A through E, appointing '''Commander D or E''' unlocks squad formation, while appointing A–C does nothing.

In other words, squad availability is not tied to ''having a militia commander'', but to ''which specific positions happen to be last in the raw list''—a notably hacky implementation.

These 'last two' are always the last two '''available positions.''' So if they get [REPLACED_BY] or become available because of [REQUIRES_POPULATION], the game adapts to those.

==Squad assignment==

Squads can be assigned, even if the leader position has no holder.

A specific unit can only have one position associated with a squad. If it gains another 'squad holding position', it is unassigned from the first one. This does not work with a 0-squad, so only 1+squads are taken into consideration. This technique can possibly be used to distribute all positions equally among all citizens. It does however not work with election and assumption.

If a civ-level position is associated with a squad and it gets a site-level squad-holding position assigned, it loses the current civ-position.

Squads can get really messed up, if you make the position (or multiple) either elected or not-elected and not-appointed, then this can cause the game to assign multiple squads to the same unit. Automatic assignment and election does not take squads into account, but the nobles screen does. This can cause the positions to be cleared as the game figures out that they have more than one position, and immediately get elected or assumed again.

Positions that cannot have a squad-position:
* A site- or civ-position with a [SUCCESSION] token cannot be appointed a squad-holding-position. The other way around, however, does work. For example, if a site-position with a [SUCCESSION]-token is appointed to a unit that has already a position with [SQUAD]. But when that squad position is assigned to another unit, it cannot be assigned back.
* A position with [SUCCESSION] can also not be assigned as a '''member''' of a squad.
* A squad-holding position with a formed squad cannot be appointed to another squad holding position.

If a position has at least one squad member, it cannot be left vacant. First, the squad has to be disbanded, then the position may be cleared.

==0-squads==
A 0-Squad is defined in a position as [SQUAD:0:member:members]. It does not seem to do anything useful as of now.
* It cannot be used to activate the [[Squad|military interface]]
* It does not restrict the assignment of [SUCCESSION] positions.
* Assigning this position does not clear any previously held squad position.
* The [[Leader]] and [[Tactician]] skill are not marked as relevant skills and are not taken into account in elections.
* It cannot be formed as a squad.

=Further testing=
The following questions may need additional testing. Feel free to add or answer
* Everything regarding COMMANDING and army-structure
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175437.msg8331668#msg8331668]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=165213.msg8335682#msg8335682]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=174584.msg8026854#msg8026854]
* Stuff about the monarch, its arrival and its entourage.

=Oddities (Bugs)=
Almost everything on this page could be called an oddity. Because of their unexpected usability, some may also be referred to as “undocumented features.” Others, however, are simply odd and not particularly useful, yet I hesitate to call them “bugs.”
* If a certain threshold is reached that makes an elected position electable, and the triggering event that initiates this evaluation is an assumption, then the resulting assumption works partially as an election. It referred to in the messages as an election and the [REJECTED_CREATURE]-token is not applied, like it is with assumptions.

=Examples=

===The Founder===
The founder is a single dwarf, appointed at embark. They will be the only one ever to have this position and are not replaceable. When they lose their position some way, the position will not be assumed by another dwarf.
{{gamedata|title=The Founder|
[POSITION:THE_FOUNDER]
[NAME:the founder:founders]
[NUMBER:1]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[REJECTED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:THE_FOUNDER] - not unassignable, also cannot be assigned to a [SQUAD] position.
[PRECEDENCE:200]
Non APPOINTED_BY
Non ELECTED
Optional: Add responsibilities to make the game select a unit with certain skills.
}}
===Marriage bar===
Dwarven matrons are held in great honour. Upon marriage, a female dwarf is no longer expected to perform menial labour. All dwarven males hold this position by default, granting their spouses exemption from menial work.

The position becomes available with the arrival of the first migrants; otherwise, on embark, it would be assumed by females. Its succession rule is non-functional, but this prevents the player from unassigning the position. A squad size of 1 and the succession rules together prevent a unit from assuming the position more than once.

With precedence set to NONE, the position name is hidden, while LAND_NAME remains visible on the nobles screen. All married females receive the suffix “, Mrs.” and are marked as Nobles.

The practical usefulness of this position is debatable, but it serves as a clear demonstration of several mechanics.
{{gamedata|title=Mrs. Urist|

[POSITION:MRS_URIST]
[NUMBER:300]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:MALE]
Not APPOINTED_BY
Not ELECTED
[LAND_NAME:Dwarven male]
[NAME:dwarven male:dwarven male]
[PRECEDENCE:NONE]
[SPOUSE_FEMALE:, Mrs.:spouses]
[MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION_SPOUSE]
[REQUIRES_POPULATION:8]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:MONARCH]
[SQUAD:1:member:members]
}}
===The Archduke===
The archduke is the leader of the civilization, but exists only from landholder 4-level. Until then, its position remains vacant. When a settlement is elevated to tier 4 (grand duke), the grand duke can appoint the ruler of the civilisation, the archduke. Because of 'Premature Succession', they themself inherit that position immediately, but only when in fortress mode. Its heir then becomes grand duke.
{{gamedata|title=The Archduke| no POSITION:MONARCH or other PRECEDENCE:1

[POSITION:THE_ARCHDUKE]
[NAME:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_MALE:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:archduchess:archduchesses]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[NUMBER:1]
[PRECEDENCE:1]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[APPOINTED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]
(add additional monarch-stuff, like spouse name, demands etc.)

[POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[NAME:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_MALE:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:grand duchess:grand duchesses]
[NUMBER:AS_NEEDED]
[LAND_HOLDER:4]
// Optional ...
[PRECEDENCE:19]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_MAKING]
[RESPONSIBILITY:RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]
[SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]
[APPOINTED_BY:THE_ARCHDUKE]
(add additional landholder-stuff)

!!add to [POSITION:DUKE]
[REPLACED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]

}}
{{Category|Modding}}
{{Category|Entities}}
{{Category|Guides}}

Advanced entity position mechanics

2026-04-28T09:26:05Z

Silverwing235: /* Losing a position */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}

= Introduction =

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=182239.0 Discussion thread on the forum]

This page documents observed and tested behavior of entity positions in Dwarf Fortress that is not fully described elsewhere on the wiki. It focuses on advanced interactions between position tokens, including appointment, succession, election, and responsibility handling, across both civilization-level and site-level entities.

The mechanics described here are based on empirical testing in world generation and fortress mode, supplemented where necessary by raw analysis. In several cases, the game’s behavior is determined by evaluation order and interaction between multiple tags, rather than by individual tokens in isolation.

This page is intended for modders and advanced players who are designing or debugging custom entity position structures. It does not restate basic position mechanics, but instead highlights edge cases, non-obvious interactions, and behaviors that may appear inconsistent or undocumented.

Unless stated otherwise, the described behavior applies to current versions of the game and may differ from older releases.

==What is an entity? What is a position?==
An [[entity]] is an organizational structure that can have relationships with other entities, usually known as a [[civilization]] or a "[[site]] government" in the game, but ie. merchant [[company|companies]], [[Mercenary#Mercenary_Orders|mercenary orders]], [[guild|guilds]], [[religion|religious organizations]], bandits and necromancer towers are also entities (and necromancer towers use the same entity type as "site governments"). An entity can have positions - in most cases, these are hardcoded and generated by the game, but as for civilizations and sites, the [[raw file]]s can be customised.

A position is a special relationship between a unit and an entity. The unit holding a position has a larger influence over that entity than other citizens. Positions are mostly known as [[nobles]], but in this article. the technical term is used.

=Position levels (Site/Civ) and their interaction=
There are two basic types of positions that are customizable: '''civ(ilization)''' level and '''site level'''. Positions with the tag [SITE] are at site level, positions without the tag [SITE] are at 'civ level'. These two types of nobles can be considered '''loosely related systems'''. There are a few places where they can interact with each other.

Civ-level positions are in charge of the civilization as a whole, managing national [[trade]], laws, and [[war]]s. These are, for example, the vanilla [[monarch]], [[diplomat]] and [[general]]. (Note that the general doesn't really do anything, except creation of additional pets in world-gen for the general and possibly raising the animal training knowledge of the civilization to "general familiarity".)

'''[LAND_HOLDER]''' nobles are also positions at civ-level. These units are members of the national government, but have gained authority over some land or site. Once they do, they move to that place, but their position is still regarded as a civ-level position.

Site-level position holders are members of a site government (subsidiary to the civilization), and manage local affairs in that location. These are, for example, the [[mayor]], the [[sheriff]] and the [[broker]].

==Table of interaction between different position levels==
In this table, the possible interactions between different position levels are summarized.
The header row shows the positions defining the tokens.

The left column shows the position type that is referred to.
Example:
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! LAND_HOLDER
|-
| civilization
| (baron is) APPOINTED_BY:MONARCH
|}
color coding: 
* Exists in vanilla
* Possible with mods
* Not possible
* possible to some extent.
* not yet fully investigated.
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
! referred position-type
! Civilization
! SITE
! LAND_HOLDER
! CONQUERED_SITE

|-
| Civilization
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(1)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(2)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY '''(3)''' COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(4)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| LAND_HOLDER
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(6)''' SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION '''(5)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY '''(7)''' SUCCESSION '''(8)'''
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION

|-
| CONQUERED_SITE
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
| APPOINTED_BY COMMANDER REPLACED_BY SUCCESSION
|}

Remarks:
# Works only in world-gen, if a unit with that civ-position is present at the site.
# Works only in world-gen, the site-position holding unit will then move to the capital.
# Is completely ignored
# Works only in world-gen.
# Works only in world-gen.
# Won't appear at all
# This is necessary for the landholder chain to work properly, it doesn’t work otherwise.
# This works only outside of the landholder chain, so when landholders are simply regarded as civ-level nobles. might also work in world-gen
#

== Other interactions ==

Unfortunately, interactions with positions of other entities don't seem possible, such as APPOINTED_BY: HIGH_PRIEST. With [VARIABLE_POSITIONS], positions are automatically created with codes like CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, but interaction with these positions don't seem to work, either. For more info on those, see [[Variable positions]]

=General=

==Civ-level nobles living at your site==
Nobles from your civilization can come to live at your fortress. This happens in vanilla with landholders such as [[Baron]], [[Count]] and [[Duke]], with the Monarch, but sometimes also with non-landed LAND_HOLDERS.

When a civ-level noble becomes a [[citizen]] at your location, their position is shown among the site-level positions in your [[nobles screen]]. They appear to function as a site-level noble. They may have [[demand]]s, [[mandate]]s, [[squad]]s and the like. They can appoint nobles at the site-level.

Even if they have certain site related [RESPONSIBILITY]ies, they will not do the tasks that go with them.

==Fortress mode, world-gen and their differences==
Their are a few differences in how positions function between fortress mode (normal play mode) and the world generation (world-gen).

In '''fortress mode''', the player has some control over the appointment of nobles, limited by elections, automatic filled-in positions and succession rules. Pre-fortress mode, which is referred to as '''world-gen''', the game will always attempt to assign nobles whenever possible. It is subjected to the same rules as in fortress-mode, but there are some exceptions. In '''[[World activities]]''', which is the thing that happens in the world while you play fortress mode, it seems as if the same rules are applied as fortress mode.

A difference between player-fortress-mode and world-gen, is causes by visibility (see below). Positions that are not visible by the player and thus not available for assignment, will be available in world-gen and will thus be automatically assigned.

In fortress mode, a position that is both [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY], cannot be appointed by the player and is also not elected, and can thus not be filled. But in world-gen sites however, these positions are automatically filled.

Positions with [AS_NEEDED] are almost never created and filled in world-gen (depending on their [RESPONSIBILITY]ies), but can always be used in player mode.

A position can, in fortress mode, be filled by the same unit. A unit can gain multiple positions in fortress mode, for example because of [[elections]]. This will not happen in world-gen mode: a unit can only have one position. See also remarks on 'embark' and 'Losing a position'.

In world-gen, [SUCCESSION] between civ-levels and [SITE-]levels may happen. This will not happen in fortress mode, or even off-site in [[World activities]].

In fortress mode, premature SUCCESSION may happen. This will not happen in world-gen mode.

==Units holding multiple positions in multiple entities==
A unit can hold multiple positions in its civilisation or in its site-entity, however in world-gen a unit will not hold multiple positions in one site-entity or in one civilisation (note that in world-gen a unit can hold multiple variable positions of the same entity, if the entity is ie. an outcast group). It is however possible - in world-gen - for a unit to hold multiple positions as long as the positions belong to different civilizations / site-entities (ie. it is possible for a militia commander of a site-entity to later on also become a monarch of the parent civilization, while staying a militia commander), if a unit holds a position of two different site-entities (the unit will usually have left one of the groups, without relinquishing the position). Only at player-managed sites can units be holding multiple positions (of the site-entity) at once. It is currently unknown, whether it is possible in world-gen for a unit to have a civ-level position in two different civilisations (but it probably is possible, as a a unit can belong to multiple civilizations and a unit usually does not relinquish a position, when the unit gets another position, as long as the entities of both positions are not the same).

In world-gen, if there are too many positions to be filled, they simply stay empty until more units are available. E.G, a unit at a site might inherit a civ-level position and still remain a member of the local government. When this happens however, they move to the capital. If a unit gains a new position, either inherited or otherwise, it drops the previous one (of that civilisation or site-entity) - the unit will not drop any positions unrelated to the entity of the new position (ie. a CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR will not relinquish that position, if the unit becomes the ruler of a civilization and a militia commander will also not necessarily relinquish the position, if the unit becomes also the monarch of the corresponding civilization). If a unit assumes a civ-position in fortress mode, it leaves the current position.

If a unit holds the same (site-)position multiple times, it has no additional effect.

If a unit holds multiple different positions of the same entity, it has all those positions' responsibilities and properties, stacked up. Presumably, the demands for those combined positions are determined by the highest.

A unit holding a position with a succession token can be assigned another position with a (different) succession token.

A unit holding a position with a squad-position cannot hold another squad-position. It is dropped from the first, when it gets its second assigned.
A unit holding a position with a succession token cannot be assigned to a squad-position - the unit is simply not available. It works the other way around, though.

=Specific Tags and functions=
==[PRECEDENCE]==
The first defined position with precedence of 1 counts as the ruler of the civ. See also: [[Position_token#PRECEDENCE|PRECEDENCE]].

If the precedence is omitted or has a negative value, the game sets 0 as precedence, which seems to have no effect whatsoever.

When a unit has multiple positions, the name of the position with the highest rank in precedence is shown behind the unit's name.

If you omit precedence entirely, or set it to [PRECEDENCE:NONE], the position name will not be shown after the unit’s name. Your *Urist Mason* will remain simply *Mason*. This can be useful for positions that are unimportant or purely functional. The position will also not appear in the civilisation overview of your site on the world map. The position name is shown in messages, but remains hidden on the nobles screen as well. To make it visible there, use [LAND_NAME].

==[RESPONSIBILITY]ies==
Both civ and [SITE] positions can carry responsibilities. However, not all responsibilities are active for both types: some function only for civ positions, others only for site positions. When a civ noble arrives at a site and takes up residence, they do not perform responsibilities that are intended for SITE nobles. As a result, these responsibilities neither trigger their associated tasks nor unlock related game mechanics. For example, a civ-level manager living in a fortress will not perform management duties there and doesn't unlock the management-screen, even with an assigned office.
This behavior applies to the following [SITE]-level responsibilities:
* [RESPONSIBILITY:ACCOUNTING]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:BUILD_MORALE]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_ENFORCEMENT]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MANAGE_PRODUCTION]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:MEET_WORKERS]
* [RESPONSIBILITY:TRADE] (functions differently)
Other responsibilities may be affected as well, but have not yet been fully tested.

===World-gen effects of the [RESPONSIBILITY] of available positions ===
It is possible to cause civs and individual sites to change their behavior substantially when they reach a certain size, by controlling nobles.
* If a site can only appoint a position with [MILITARY_GOALS] after reaching a particular size, that site will not send armies on missions until the required size is reached.
* A civ-level [LAW_MAKING] position is required for the civilization to have any kind of cohesion. Without it, sites will be constantly embroiled in territorial disputes and civil wars will be commonplace.
* [MILITARY_STRATEGY] positions go out and tame wild animals. This makes your civ gain those animals as domesticated and also brings them in sieges.
* The [[Personality_facet|Personality]] of the position's holder determines how they lead the civ.

===[DELIVERS_MESSAGES]===
The only [AS_NEEDED]-position that is created in worldgen based on responsibility is that of the site-level responsibility [DELIVERS_MESSAGES].

===Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats===
Civ-positions with the responsibility [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS] ([[Outpost_Liaison|Outpost Liaison]]s) will meet with the site-noble who has responsibility for [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] and the highest rank of precedence (i.e. the lowest precedence value). Usually this is the [[Expedition_leader|Expedition leader]].

Once a [LAND_HOLDER] is assigned to the site, civ-positions with the responsibility [MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS] ([[Diplomat]]s) will meet with '''civ'''-level nobles present at the site who have the [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS] responsibility. If multiple eligible nobles are available, one is selected at random. If no eligible noble is present, the diplomat leaves angrily. If the landholder is no longer present at the site, diplomats will not arrive at all.

It appears that Outpost Liaisons and Diplomats are chosen for a diplomatic mission based on availability. When multiple candidates exist, the position defined last in the raws is most often selected.

===[TRADE]===
Civ-level nobles with [TRADE] will arrive with the caravan, just as the Outpost Liaison. Their behavior is no longer active in the vanilla game, but the mechanics are still present. See [[40d:Guild_representative|Guild representative]] for more details. This civ-noble will only meet with the SITE noble with [TRADE], usually the [[Broker]].

If two civ-nobles exist with both [TRADE] and [ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS], they both arrive at the same time. Even if both tokens are assigned to a single position, if more than one instance of that position exists, two of them will arrive. However in that case, somehow the elevation of the site and appointment of landholder isn't offered.

If the SITE-noble they intend to meet has both [TRADE] and [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], only one meeting will proceed and the other is cancelled. However, when two SITE-nobles are available, each with either [TRADE] or [RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS], both meetings will proceed and both civ-nobles will attempt to negotiate a trade agreement. It is not known what happens if these agreements are accepted or refused.

In the trade depot, the last defined position with the [TRADE] responsibility is shown as broker. However when requesting a trader, the first defined position with [TRADE] will actually go there to do the trade.

==[NUMBER]==
A position might be defined with a number. In that case, as many as defined can be available. If the positions become available, in world-gen and when embarking, they are all filled-in completely.

If the ruling position (with PRECEDENCE of 1) has a NUMBER higher than 1, a random unit of the ones holding these positions is shown as ruler in the embark screen.

A [NUMBER] of 0 (zero) has the same effect as 1.

===Automatic spreading of assumed, non-singular positions===
If there are civ positions that have a NUMBER higher then '1' and which are assumed (not APPOINTED_BY or ELECTED) but are '''not DUTY_BOUND''', these are automatically spread among the civilisation, based on population. If there are a number of '''20''' available slots of that position, they spread among a civilization with a combined population of, for example, 1000 of which your fortress has 100 (10%), '''2''' of your fortress' citizens will assume that position.
This may probably also work with elected and appointed positions, but that may be depending on the death of the current holders and this needs more testing. Assumption works within a day, anyway.

===[AS_NEEDED]===
These positions can be created automatically by the game in world-gen. This, however, only works with:
* [LAND_HOLDER]'s
* squad commanders (needs more testing)
* Messengers at sites

For all other types of positions, they're not created in world-gen, even if they are defined with RESPONSIBILITY's. For example, even in war, the game wouldn't create a MILITARY_GOALS position, if they have AS_NEEDED as number.

However, in fortress mode / player mode, these positions can be created by the player at will.

Positions with AS_NEEDED need to be created first, before any symbols are assignable as 'symbols' (objects) for the position holder to carry or wear.

Positions with AS_NEEDED cannot be created and then ELECTED in fortress mode. It only works with APPOINTED_BY.

==[REPLACED_BY], [REQUIRES_POPULATION], [REQUIRES_MARKET]==

The token [REPLACED_BY:position] means that once the replacing position meets its requirements for activation, the 'to-be-replaced' position will disappear. This is defined in [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or [REQUIRES_MARKET]. The tags are closely related to each other and seem to only have a meaningful function if combined. Nobles with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size. Nobles with [REQUIRES_MARKET] are only activated in market sites, such as fortresses or towns. [REQUIRES_POPULATION] and [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be combined, activating that position once both requirements are met.

The [REQUIRES_MARKET] can be used to differentiate positions between hamlets and hillocks, and larger sites. IThe market always is build the year after the site is founded. So a position that is to be replaced, will be gone immediately.

The [REQUIRES_POPULATION]-tag works on the civ-level as well as on site-level, but those systems are in this mechanic strictly separated. Site-level positions cannot be replaced by civ-level positions and visa versa. This makes sense, because they both depend on their own population-count. When using REQUIRES_POPULATION on civ-level, it counts the total population of the civilisation.

See also: [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Evaluation_of_Positions|Evaluation of positions]]

===Effect of replacement (and on [LAND_HOLDER]s)===

Replacement is immediate and complete - the current holding unit loses the position, even before SUCCESSION_BY_POSITION rules are applied. A position with a number of 1 will replace all the slots of a position with a higher number of slots.

Even if the next position is available but not visible, replacement still takes place. If a position is replaced, it is completely gone - it cannot be appointed, succeeded, elected or assumed any longer.
The unit immediately loses its position.

In legends, replacement is mentioned as: "(unit name) ceased to be (position name)" The replacement of an AS_NEEDED position empties the position's slot forever. In fortress mode, it may seem as if you can create new slots and appoint new units in the nobles screen, but this is reversed as soon as you close the window.

The landholder chain uses [REPLACED_BY] differently. It does not clear the position completely, but uses it for succession to the next level's position. [REPLACE_BY] is required to let that system work properly. This also means that the way in which landholders succeed (replace + as_needed) does not work in any other way.

Replacement between LAND_HOLDERS and other site- or civ positions does not work in any way. Only the vanilla replacement sequence between levels of LAND_HOLDERs does work. If the token is omitted for landholders, the landholder chain is broken, so replacement is required for the landholder system to work.

[REQUIRES_POPULATION] also does not work for [LAND_HOLDER], when you set [NUMBER] to 1. The position is not created when the required population is reached.

===What doesn't work===

'''Attention: If a position cannot be appointed, for example because of 'mutual appointment', it still exists according to replacement mechanics and will replace other positions if so defined. If a certain position(a) will be replaced by the baron's assistant, which can only be appointed by the [LAND_HOLDER] baron, than that position(s) still will be replaced from the start of the game, even if no baron or their assistant is ever present.'''

A position that is replaced by a somehow non-fillable position is still replaced. This counts for mutual-appointing positions, replacement by not-yet-assigned landholders, replacement by AS_NEEDED positions, or replacement by not-yet-appointed positions.

Replacement does not work if the replaced position is a [LAND_HOLDER], even with civ-positions. In that case, the LAND_HOLDER's position is not replaced. It does not matter if AS_NEEDED is used, or a fixed number, and it also does not matter what type of position the replacer is. So this only works (correctly) with positions that become available by REQUIRES_POPULATION.

==[CONQUERED_SITE]==

This tag determines which position is used to assign a [[Forced administrator]].

In legends mode, this is visible as an event describing the reconquest of the site: a new group is formed and the forced administrator is installed as its ruler.

All positions defined with this tag are assigned during this process, meaning multiple positions can be appointed at once.

The holder of a position marked with [CONQUERED_SITE] cannot appoint any other [SITE] positions.

Combining [CONQUERED_SITE] with [SITE] causes the position to function both as a forced administrator and as a normal site position available in fortress mode. However, this provides no meaningful additional mechanics and is effectively inferior to using [SITE] alone:
* [APPOINTED_BY] lines are completely ignored, meaning that the roles are automatically assumed.
* [SUCCESSION] is likewise ignored.
* the [CONQUERED_SITE]-position cannot appoint other [CONQUERED_SITE], [SITE] or combined positions.

There have been remarks that reclaiming a fortress is unplayable because of the lack of regular nobles. Unfortunately, it seems that it can't be fixed by modding.

=Availability and visibility=
==Availability of (new) positions==
Warning: Do not mistake "availability" for "visibility"!

Of all the possible positions existing in your site's entity, there may only be some available.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION] require the population to have a specific size.
* Positions with [REQUIRES_MARKET] will only appear in "large" sites (which may have different rules for different site types). This tag has no effect in fort mode.
* Positions that are appointed by positions that have an AS_NEEDED number. The appointable positions only become available after an appointer position-slot is created. This works also on civ-level. If a position is appointed by a Land-holder, it only becomes available, when that level of landholder is created.

Only the replaced positions are culled and are no longer available.
A position that requires a certain population will become available, even if it doesn't have [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED]. In that case, see 'automatic assignment' and 'assumption'

In fortress mode, in some cases 'succession' is evaluated immediately after a position becomes available. See: Succession.
==Visibility of positions==
A position might be available, but can still be invisible for the player in the [[nobles screen]]. The positions with their respective holders are visible for players:
* All site-positions that are already filled-in (even if they could not be re-filled-in considering current conditions)
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in site position
* Site positions that are appointable by a filled-in civ position, when that civ positions holder becomes a citizen of your fortress.
* Civ positions of units that are also a citizen of your fortress.
If a position becomes available, for example because a certain pop number has been reached, or if it is available from the start(like expedition leader), as long as it cannot be appointed, it still is INVISIBLE for the player.

It might strike someone as odd if a position becomes filled automatically in fortress mode when that position is not even visible. This might be the case if the current holder of a non-appointable position dies or succeeds another position. Regardless of player visibility, these positions will be automatically filled in if the necessary requisitions are met. It might happen with the expedition leader.

A situation with a non-visible but available position, is for example when a position is solely appointed by the expedition leader, when the expedition leader's position is left vacant. It can no longer be appointed by the player and is invisible. Then, it gets automatically assumed, proving that the position still was available.

A position that is both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] is visible, but players cannot interact with it.

={{text anchor|Evaluation of Positions}}=
The game does not continuously check whether positions should become available, elected or be [REPLACE_BY]. This is well-known behavior—for example with the [[mayor]], who does not appear automatically when the required population ([REQUIRES_POPULATION]) is reached. Instead, positions must somehow be evaluated. This applies in several other situations as well

'''Cases that require a trigger:'''
* Election of a newly created position
* Election after the current holder dies
* Automatic assumption of a newly created position (this may take up to a day)
* New citizens (such as migrants) considering available positions
* Premature succession of a newly created position

'''Cases that do not wait for a trigger:'''
* Succession following the death of the previous holder
* Automatic assumption of existing positions that have become vacant

'''Triggers that cause the game to reevaluate noble positions:'''
* Succession of a [SITE]-position due to the death of the current holder
* [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Election_Day|Election Day]]
* Automatic assumption of a [SITE]-position that becomes vacant
* (Re)assigning any site position manually
* Settlement elevation on the LAND_HOLDER track (e.g. gaining a [[Baron]] or [[Count]])

=Gaining a position=
There are several ways a unit can gain a position:
* Appointment: A unit is appointed by another unit or by the player.
* Election: A unit is elected by and among the members of the entity
* Assumption: A position is neither elected or appointed: a random unit just simply 'takes' the position
* Succession: a unit is the valid successor of this position(A), either by its current position(B) or because they are that position(A)-holder's heir.

Available positions will automatically be assigned to a random civ member when a new site/civ is created.

==Who can take a position==

* If so defined, a unit needs to be the right caste and/or class - it does not seem to work with creature types.
* The unit needs to be an adult member of the site or its parent civ's government; that is also CAN_LEARN or INTELLIGENT (SLOW_LEARNER cannot take positions) or otherwise is able to think.

==Appointment==

Positions that have an [APPOINTED_BY:position] token require that position to exist, to be available and appointed. Any position that is APPOINTED_BY can be appointed if the appointer's position is filled in.
For site-positions to be appointed, it is required that the appointer is present at that location.

If the appointing unit is temporarily not present, or if that position is not filled, positions depending on it cannot be appointed. This is the case with [[militia captains]], when the [[militia commander]] is on a [[mission]].

A site position cannot appoint a civ position ''or'' LAND_HOLDER in any way whatsoever.

Civ-level positions can appoint other civ-level positions and site-level positions can appoint other site-level positions.

Contrary to what has been said elsewhere, civ-level nobles also can appoint site-level nobles. They need to be at the site to do so. Landholders can appoint both site-level and civ-level nobles. These systems are therefore not as separate as was assumed.

'''Mutual appointment''' cannot take place. If these are the only requisites of the position, then the positions will never appear or get filled. These unfillable positions can be put to good use, for example, to replace a position that is no longer needed without creating a new one.

'''Self appointment''' doesn't normally work. If you have a position that is only appointed by itself, it is never appointed and also cannot be assumed. However, if the position has a number higher than 1, and is filled by multiple units (for example by another position that is now empty), than those units can re-assign or appoint each other from that their shared position.

If an APPOINTED_BY token refers to a non-existing position's code, the effects are as if the appointment token doesn't exist at all.

===Automatic appointment in world-gen and on the civ level===

Outside of fortress mode, the game will always attempt to appoint nobles whenever possible, as long as these positions are '''available''', even if they are invisible to the player.
It shows this message in legends: "(unit name) has been appointed to the position of (position name)"

In world-gen, all positions become available and are automatically appointed, taking population- and appointment-requirements into consideration.

Positions that are REPLACED_BY are culled and won't be filled.

If a citizen of your fortress holds a civ-level position that can appoint another civ-level position, the appointment will happen automatically and without player intervention. It may happen that another citizen of your fortress is appointed by that unit, creating civ-level position holders in your fortress, but it is unknown what is required to force this effect.

===Manual appointments by players in fortress mode===
In fortress mode, the positions that need to be appointed stay empty on embark. and it is the player's job to appoint those. A player can appoint a unit to any available position, according to the hereabove mentioned conditions. The player takes the role of the automatic appointment-system, but has no direct control over elections, successions and replacement. There are some differences in what is possible at world-gen sites and at player-controlled sites.

* A position that is appointed by a unit present as a fortress citizen, can be appointed, re-appointed or left vacant. This means also by civ-level nobles living as a citizen in your fortress; not when they are only visiting, like the diplomat.
* A position whose appointing positions are all either vacant or [REPLACED_BY] can no longer be appointed. If the position is already filled, it cannot be reappointed or vacated; the current holder simply remains in office.
* A position that is APPOINTED_BY a unit present as the land_holder of your site, can be appointed, reassigned or left vacant.
* A position that has SUCCESSION BY_HEIR or BY_POSITION can 'initially' be appointed and also re-appointed or left vacant, but as soon as the [[nobles]] screen closes, ''it can no longer be replaced or left vacant''. From then on, the succession-rules determine who gains that position when the current holder loses the position. This works even if the SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION-position is vacant or replaced.
* A position that is ELECTED nor APPOINTED_BY, can always be (re-)appointed by the player. This is the case with the [[Expedition leader]]. If it is left vacant however, it cannot be appointed, but will be assumed shortly after.
* A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY, cannot be appointed by the player. Contrary to world-gen sites, its slot is visible, but it doesn't show the +-sign. This is either by AS_NEEDED or by a fixed number. Even if the position somehow gets filled (re)assignment is never possible
* A player can appoint a number of units to a position, as much as the NUMBER token dictates. If it is AS_NEEDED, the player may create as many slots as they like, also contrary to world-gen sites.
* A civ-position can never be appointed, even if the appointing civ noble is a citizen of your fortress. A civ position also never can be re-assigned or left vacant, would that position be defined as appointed by a site-position.

==Election==
Read more in [[Elections]]. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) has been elected to the position of (position name)"

In worldgen, there is no functional difference between ELECTED and non-appointment, except that elected nobles tend to have high social skills and/or skills related to the position, while non-elected ones are assigned randomly. See: [[Elections]]

A succession goes before an election.

A position that is both ELECTED and APPOINTED_BY never gets elected. Even if the appointees' position somehow gets filled, (re)-elections won't happen. So, it doesn't seem possible to have an elected position become available when a certain other position becomes filled.

An ELECTED civ-(or LAND_HOLDER) position at your site will never be (re)-elected in fortress mode. So real (re-)election only works with SITE-positions.

=== {{text anchor|Election Day}} ===
Election Day takes place on the 17th of Summer. On this day, a full reevaluation is performed, including all currently elected positions, which are subject to re-election. Contrary to the information on [[Elections]], nothing occurs at the start of a season.

Positions that are both [APPOINTED_BY] and [ELECTED] will not be re-elected on Election Day when assigned through [SUCCESSION].

=== Election Eligiblity ===
Any citizen may stand for election. Eligibility cannot be restricted using [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS], or [GENDER]. Units currently having a [SUCCESSION]-position even may be elected for a position with a [SQUAD]-token, which is otherwise impossible to assign or even succeed.

=== Skills ===
In elections, skills are taken into account for the tokens of the position which is elected.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Relevant skills per position token
|-
! Position Token !! Relevant skills
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#DELIVER_MESSAGES|[DELIVER_MESSAGES]]] || [[Ambusher]], [[Observer]] and [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ACCOUNTING|[ACCOUNTING]]] || [[Record_keeper|Record keeper]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#ESPIONAGE|[ESPIONAGE]]] || [[Schemer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#HEALTH_MANAGEMENT|[HEALTH_MANAGEMENT]]] || [[Diagnostician|Diagnostician]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS|[MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS|[MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MANAGE_PRODUCTION|[MANAGE_PRODUCTION]]] || [[Organizer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#MEET_WORKERS|[MEET_WORKERS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS|[RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#RELIGION|[RELIGION]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TAME_EXOTICS|[TAME_EXOTICS]]] || [[Animal_trainer|Animal trainer]]
|-
| Responsibility [[Position_token#TRADE|[TRADE]]] || [[Social_skill|Social skills]] and [[Appraiser|Appraiser]]
|-
| [[Position_token#SQUAD|[SQUAD]]]-token || [[Tactician]] and [[Leader]]
|}

==Assumption==

A position that is not APPOINTED_BY nor ELECTED, or is appointed by positions that are not available in your site or civ, will be assumable by a random dwarf. If it has responsibilities that require certain skills, then these are taken into consideration on embark, but not when the position is assumed during the actual game.

Normally, one to three units will take the into consideration to assume a position. Most of the time when there are multiple open positions, only a single unit will assume all of them. However, a position that has REJECTED_CREATURE, REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CREATURE or ALLOWED_CLASS will be filled with all different units, even if the creature or class mentioned is irrelevant. It seems that this forces the game to loop over all the available units.

The message that is shown in Legends mode is: "(unit name) has assumed the position of (position name)". This may also take place in fortress mode, which then shows this message to the player.

If an assumable position becomes empty, it will be assumed within a day. This is the case when you leave the position of expedition-leader vacant. It also happens with entities.

Assumable positions that become empty will not be assumed if that position has a valid [SUCCESSION] -successor. In that case, the successor inherits the position.

Even positions that are somehow invisible because they cannot be directly APPOINTED_BY players, can be assumed.

When you embark, the assumable positions are automatically assigned to a random unit. If there are multiple of these positions at embark, they all are assigned to the same unit. If there are enough positions available, multiple units may gain a position, but often no more than three different ones.

If a dwarf in fortress mode assumes a position, that already has another position, it will leave the current position empty. When that position also is assumed, then this will continue until all positions have a dwarf appointed to them, with no other position.

A unit that already has a position with a [SUCCESSION] token won't take assumable positions into consideration that have a [SQUAD] token. This can be used by the modder to prevent unwanted loss of current positions.

A position that has an appointer which got replaced because of REPLACED_BY, will not become assumable. Also, positions that have an AS_NEEDED appointer that is not yet filled (or ever), will also not be assumed.

==Succession==

If a position-holder dies or advances to a new position via succession, the position will be granted to another unit based on the [SUCCESSION] tag. If they have an heir or the succeeding position exists, that unit will be assigned. If not, a new one will be appointed according to the usual rules. The message that is shown is: "(creature name) being the rightful heir, has inherited the position of (position name)"

The succeeding creature will also lose its previous position. When succession is defined using BY_POSITION, the unit naturally loses the referenced position. However, it also loses any other positions it may hold. If a unit could simultaneously inherit multiple positions, the last-defined succession overrides the earlier one, clearing the previously acquired position

Succession works both at site-level and at civ-level, both in world-gen and in fortress-mode. Succession by position on the civ-level is also visible and functional in fortress-mode. If both civ-level nobles are a citizen of your fortress, succession is applied visually. Vanilla example: The [[druid]] is succeeded by the [[acolyte]]. This means that as soon as the druid dies, the acolyte takes over.

When a position that is succeeded by position becomes available, immediately it is checked if a position-successor is available and the position is filled with that unit. Even if this is an [ELECTED] position, succession goes first. When elections eventually do happen, succession plays no role.

It is possible to assign multiple levels of [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] in different positions, creating a line of positions where the death of one causes all those "below" them to advance.

A position can have multiple tokens with position-succession. It looks to be random which one is used. It is not always:
* The first or last defined token
* The first or last appointed unit
* the oldest or youngest
* one with a higher or lower precedence
* a unit with relevant skills

When a position is defined with a Succession-type, that unit cannot have another position that has a Squad-type. If the succession-position itself has a squad, than it can be assigned another position with a squad, but then it will loose the previous succesion position. See further details by "Squad"

Assumed positions can also be succeeded by position, if the current holder dies.

If the successor is an AS_NEEDED position, the used unit will leave a vacant position-slot on its removal by succession. This empty slot remains a real slot, which will only be cleaned up if you (un)appoint a unit to this position-series. It isn't cleaned up after regular position validation.

A civ-level position of a unit living at your site might be inherited by a unit holding that does not currently live at your site. This, unfortunately, moves that position to a unit off site. This may also happen with the landholder of your site, for example when it is succeeded by another civ-level position. This currently poses an unsolved challenge.

===Eligibility for succession===
Succession is restricted by the tokens [ACCEPTED_CREATURE], [REJECTED_CREATURE], [ACCEPTED_CLASS], [REJECTED_CLASS] and [GENDER].

===Site and civ combined succession===

Succession can work when combining site positions with civ-level positions or land_holders, but only in world-gen mode. In fortress mode, it only works with combining the same level of nobles, with Landholders regarded as civ-level. So, in fortress mode, a site's position cannot succeed a landholder's position and it cannot succeed another type of civ-level position, and vice versa.

This won't work even if the positions:
* are AS_NEEDED or having a fixed number.
* Are LAND_HOLDERs.

===Succession [BY_HEIR]===

When a heir is needed for succession, all children and then other relatives are validated. They cannot take the position if their status does not allow it, for example if they have become a member of another civilisation. See: "Who can take a position". If the unit has no valid heir on that location, the position may go to a unit living on another site. This may cause the title of Landholder of some land to be inherited by a unit living somewhere else. That might be a problem, because then you lose your landholders.

===Premature Succession===

There are cases where [SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION] is applied prematurely: at the moment a position is first created and becomes appointable or assumable, rather than after a current holder leaves. In this situation, the succession mechanism assigns a holder immediately, without any player interaction.

When a position becomes available for the first time, the game checks whether a valid successor-by-position exists. If so, that unit is assigned instantly. It can affect positions that would normally be appointed or elected by the player, causing succession to trigger before the player has any opportunity to intervene.

This behavior occurs only in Fortress mode, but can be applied both on [SITE]-positions as well in civ-positions. That last one however is a bit harder to control. Example: [[Advanced entity position mechanics#The Archduke|The Archduke]]

This premature succession only occurs the first time a position becomes available (i.e. when it is created and becomes appointable or assumable). Even if the position remains vacant and the conditions for succession improve later, premature succession will not trigger again. From that point onward, only normal succession rules apply.

Using premature succession, a position that has [ELECTED], [APPOINTED_BY], or both, can be filled directly.
Notably, positions that combine [ELECTED] and [APPOINTED_BY] are normally impossible to fill through regular mechanics. Premature succession bypasses both election and appointment entirely, making this combination uniquely reachable through this mechanism.

No initial election takes place, and no subsequent elections will ever occur for that position. Succession always takes precedence over election, both in premature succession and in normal succession cases.

This behavior applies only in Fortress mode, not during world generation. World-gen uses simplified and more efficient mechanics, and this interaction does not occur there. Premature succession can affect both site-level and civilization-level positions.

====Multiple succession chains====

Multiple succession chains may be defined and are resolved in the order they appear in the raws.

If a position has both:
* a direct succession chain (A → C), and
* a multi-step chain (A → B → C),

and intermediate positions are vacant, resolution proceeds according to raw order. A common outcome is:
# The direct succession (A → C) is applied first, assigning A to C.
# The remaining chain then advances (A → B).
# If C still has empty slots, the final step (B → C) may occur.

If position B is already filled, behavior depends entirely on raw definition order:
* nothing may happen, or
* B may move to C first, followed by A moving to B.
====Working triggers====
Premature succession is triggered when a succeedable position is created under the following conditions:
* The succeedable position is created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] threshold is reached. This applies even if the position is not [APPOINTED_BY]. Premature succession takes priority over automatic assumption (e.g. the mayor declaring themselves within a day).
** The position must either be assumable or appointed by an existing position. When said appointer-position also just has been created, the premature succession of the succeedable position happenes, even when the appointer-position is empty.
* The succeedable position can be [APPOINTED_BY] another position of the same level (site or civ) that has just been created because its [REQUIRES_POPULATION] was reached.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another [SITE] [AS_NEEDED] position that has just been created and filled.
* The succeedable (site or civ) position is [APPOINTED_BY] the [LAND_HOLDER] position, which has just been created due to site elevation. This typically resolves when the diplomat leaves the map, at which point the landholder position becomes active.
* If all other requirements are met, premature succession can occur immediately after unpausing following embark, for positions with [REQUIRES_POPULATION:7].

====Non-working triggers====
Premature succession does '''not''' occur in the following cases:
* An [AS_NEEDED] succeedable position slot is manually created by the player while its succeeding position is already filled. [AS_NEEDED] positions must always be appointed after creation.
* The succeeding position is filled after the succeedable position becomes available. The moment of creation is the decisive trigger; filling the source position later is too late.
* The succeedable position can be appointed by another site or civ position with a fixed number of slots that has just been appointed. In this case, the succeedable position is just available for appointment itself, nothing more
* Any situation occurring during world generation.
* The succeeding position is [REPLACED_BY] the succeedable position. In this case, replacement removes the unit from the source position first, leaving no holder available for the succession mechanism to use.rst, leaving no holder available for the succession mechanism to use.
* The position is [APPOINTED_BY] a civ-level position, that just became a citizen of your fortress. It must be noted that those civ-level positions were active all that time and the succeedable position could be appointed even before. The monarchs arrival does not trigger premature succession

=Losing a position=

A unit can lose a position when:
* It dies
* It succeeds another position, even if it has nothing to do with the previous position.
* It is assigned to another SQUAD-holding position
* It is convicted of a crime.
* Another unit is ELECTED for the position
* It is convinced by an adventurer to give up its position, or is overthrown in a coup.
* Its position becomes replaced
* Another unit is appointed by the player, or the position is left vacant.
* It has assumed another position (of the same entity), as this always leaves the previous position vacant.

Note: A unit does not lose a position when the unit leaves the group (entity). Neither will a unit lose a position, if the corresponding entity is considered to be dead.

=Embarkment=
Two types of positions are automatically filled by embark.
* Positions without [APPOINTED_BY] or [ELECTED] (assumable). All these positions, even with a NUMBER higher than 1, are all filled with one to three dwarves. Contrary to assumption, this doesn't take into account any limitations. REJECTED_CLASS, ALLOWED_CLASS, REJECTED_CREATURE, ALLOWED_CREATURE and GENDER are applied, but without the normal spread you may expect with assumptions. Also it doesn't look at [SUCCESSION] and [SQUAD] limitations.
* Positions that are elected are filled-in by the normal election rules.

Positions that have a defined appointer are never initially filled at embark.

All positions that don't have [REQUIRES_POPULATION] or with a [REQUIRES_POPULATION] of 7 or lower, will be available at embark.

=Land Holders=

A Landholder is a '''special civ-level noble''' who gets a certain piece of land to hold, when that land is elevated to a certain level, determined by the tag [LAND_HOLDER] and by the landholder triggers in the game's settings. In vanilla, these are the baron, the count and the duke.

A unit gaining the landholder position does not migrate to that specific named land. In world-gen, they stay just where they are, probably at the capital. In fortress mode, you can suggest a citizen for the role. So for the time being that works.

Succession is then a real issue. If you use BY_HEIR, its solved when that landholder has children living at your site. But when its not the case, the title just goes to anyone randomly. Succession BY_POSITION works, but only in the civ-chain, and there's no way to guarantee a civ-holder is at your site at that time. Even with 'automatic spread' positions, it goes to one of them randomly.

==Functioning of the regular landholder chain==

The distinct difference between a landholder and a regular civ-level noble, is that a landholder may gain the position of landholder "of (sitename)" They are then seen as ruler of a particular site.

For a land_holder position to function as such, it has a few requirements:
* NUMBER:AS_NEEDED
* The first landholder-number of 1 is defined.
* No SITE (so civ) tag in that position.
*REPLACED_BY the next level landholder
If a landholder is defined with differentiating properties, it will function like a regular noble. A higher-up landholder that lacks the required tokens or connections will then not be used in elevation.

If a fortress meets the trigger for a new LAND_HOLDER tier when a caravan leaves, then the next time the outpost liaison or equivalent arrives, they will offer to make you an official colony, which will allow you to select all positions for that LAND_HOLDER level. Each time they appear, the outpost liaison will only promote your fortress one tier up the LAND_HOLDER track.

The landholder's LAND_NAME is not required for the functioning of this system. If omitted, messages will be shown with a more generic text.

==Appointment==

This mechanism differs from the regular methods of position management. It ignores all regular appointment- and election rules, so it more or less functions like automatic assignment. A landholder is, in vanilla, appointed by the monarch. Changing this doesn't seem to do anything. If they are appointed by a site-position, a not-yet-existing civ-position, or not appointed at all: the system keeps working as usual.

A landholder can appoint civ-positions and site positions. This works as expected: the positions only are appointed then when that landholder becomes available on civ-level or when he arrives at that site for site-level positions.

If your rank of landholder is the first of its rank in the realm, and is the sole appointer of some civ-position, then immediately as it gains the title, it will appoint the empty civ-slots. This may happen on your site, but the frequency and certainty is hard to determine.

==Succession==

Succession rules are applied to some extent:
* In world-gen it works according to succession rules, and site-positions can be used here. This means that a site position or a civ-position can inherit a landholder position, and vice versa.
* In fortress mode, once a landholder has been appointed, it then can inherit civ-level positions, and vice versa. This means that your baron can become king.
* Succession rules do not apply within the [LAND_HOLDER] chain; a count will not inherit a baron's land. This is because succession does not work well with the AS_NEEDED token.
* Premature succession works in fortress mode with landholders. If a unit gets a landholder's position and that landholder is the appointer of an as yet empty position, which is defined as succeeding from a third one, then the succession is immediately applied. The landholder themselves can even be the successor of a newly created position.
* A landholder's position is, in fortress mode, not successionable by a site-position or vice versa

===Impossibilities for succession by a site-position===
It would be very beneficial if the landholder can be succeeded by a [SITE]-position. So far, the following tests have not lead to positive results:
* making landholder and site-position both non-[DUTY_BOUND]
* make the site-position be [APPOINTED_BY] the landholder and/or the monarch
* give landholder and site-position [REJECTED_CREATURE]
* Let the monarch live at your site when succession could happen.
* Let the site-position be [REPLACED_BY] the landholder.

If the vanilla [SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]-tag is omitted, a seemingly random unit somewhere in the realm is assigned this position.

==Nomination==

The player is able to nominate a unit to become the LAND_HOLDER, but this only works with units of [LAND_HOLDER] level 1. The player can select all units, only limited by the PRECEDENCE of the current units' positions.

A unit that has a position with a PRECEDENCE lower or equal to that of the landholder's position, cannot be selected. This means that a baron (or count) from another site or the monarch cannot be selected, because their precedence is lower or equal.

The GENDER token does not work here: also units with the wrong gender (sorry) can be selected.

==Levels==
In mods, up to 10 levels of LAND_HOLDER may be defined.

If a landholder is replaced by a wrong landholder number (1 replaced by 3), then the number 3 is still correctly attached to the settlement.

If the current landholder has the highest available landholder number, then the next elevation will not happen - the diplomat will not elevate your fortress to a higher position, even if that position might be REPLACED_BY a lower landholder.

These chains do work:
* 1 -> 2a - > 2b -> 3
* 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4

These chains do not work:
* 2 -> 3 (need to start at 1)
* 1 -> 4 -> 2 -> 3 (stops after 4 as the highest)
* 1a -> 2, 1b -> 2 (only 1a and 2 work, 1b is not used)

==Moving landholders==

It may happen that a land-holder no longer lives at the site which they are the landholder of, specifically when the current landholder dies, leaving the title to an heir living somewhere else.

To prevent this from happening, you can make their succession from heir and make sure that their kids live at your site. Or, you can make their position succeeded by another civ position, and make it so that this civ position is somehow available on your site. But if multiple of these positions exist, it cannot be guaranteed that a citizen of your fortress will inherit the title.

In world gen, a landholder lacking the DUTY_BOUND-token will also move to the site they like, according to legends mode.

==Replacement by a generic civ-position==

If a landholder is replaced by an AS_NEEDED non-landholder civ-position, then this will work: the current landholder loses that title upon settlement-elevation and gains that civ-title. However, the civ-title lacks the landholder-property of being attached to the land. It will not show the name of the settlement alongside the position's name. So no "minister of Shovelmounts"

If a landholder is replaced by a general AS_NEEDED civ-position, that itself is also replaced by a generic AS_NEEDED civ-position, then firstly the elevation is executed and also the unit gains that new position. However, he immediately loses it, because an AS_NEEDED position that is replaced by another position can be filled initially, but units wont be able to hold that title.

==Landholder with fixed number==

A landholder's position that has a fixed number will be created and filled directly when the civilisation is born, so this position slot is then not available for the regular landholder-mechanic and will also not be used. That landholder will thus not be attached to a settlement.

It doesn't matter if the landholder's position is connected to the regular landholder's-chain with the REPLACE_BY token.

==Responsibilities==

When given a certain [RESPONSIBILITY], a landholder may function as a regular civ-level noble. If the position has [TRADE] or [OUTPOST_NEGOTIATING] responsibilities, then the landholder functions both as a diplomat and as an actual land holder. A landholder with the [MILITARY_STRATEGY] responsibility will travel around taming creatures in world-gen, according to legends mode.

Besides that, the responsibilities work the same as with any other on-site living position-holder, civ or otherwise.

=Military=
==Squad management==
In the vanilla game, the Squad interface only becomes available after a militia commander has been appointed. Until then, the window displays:{{DFtext|You must appoint somebody first to create a squad.}}

What’s surprising is how this is determined internally. In the entity raw definition, '''only the last two positions that include a [SQUAD] token are checked''' to decide whether the interface is accessible at all. As a result, if your hierarchy defines commanders A through E, appointing '''Commander D or E''' unlocks squad formation, while appointing A–C does nothing.

In other words, squad availability is not tied to ''having a militia commander'', but to ''which specific positions happen to be last in the raw list''—a notably hacky implementation.

These 'last two' are always the last two '''available positions.''' So if they get [REPLACED_BY] or become available because of [REQUIRES_POPULATION], the game adapts to those.

==Squad assignment==

Squads can be assigned, even if the leader position has no holder.

A specific unit can only have one position associated with a squad. If it gains another 'squad holding position', it is unassigned from the first one. This does not work with a 0-squad, so only 1+squads are taken into consideration. This technique can possibly be used to distribute all positions equally among all citizens. It does however not work with election and assumption.

If a civ-level position is associated with a squad and it gets a site-level squad-holding position assigned, it loses the current civ-position.

Squads can get really messed up, if you make the position (or multiple) either elected or not-elected and not-appointed, then this can cause the game to assign multiple squads to the same unit. Automatic assignment and election does not take squads into account, but the nobles screen does. This can cause the positions to be cleared as the game figures out that they have more than one position, and immediately get elected or assumed again.

Positions that cannot have a squad-position:
* A site- or civ-position with a [SUCCESSION] token cannot be appointed a squad-holding-position. The other way around, however, does work. For example, if a site-position with a [SUCCESSION]-token is appointed to a unit that has already a position with [SQUAD]. But when that squad position is assigned to another unit, it cannot be assigned back.
* A position with [SUCCESSION] can also not be assigned as a '''member''' of a squad.
* A squad-holding position with a formed squad cannot be appointed to another squad holding position.

If a position has at least one squad member, it cannot be left vacant. First, the squad has to be disbanded, then the position may be cleared.

==0-squads==
A 0-Squad is defined in a position as [SQUAD:0:member:members]. It does not seem to do anything useful as of now.
* It cannot be used to activate the [[Squad|military interface]]
* It does not restrict the assignment of [SUCCESSION] positions.
* Assigning this position does not clear any previously held squad position.
* The [[Leader]] and [[Tactician]] skill are not marked as relevant skills and are not taken into account in elections.
* It cannot be formed as a squad.

=Further testing=
The following questions may need additional testing. Feel free to add or answer
* Everything regarding COMMANDING and army-structure
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175437.msg8331668#msg8331668]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=165213.msg8335682#msg8335682]
** [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=174584.msg8026854#msg8026854]
* Stuff about the monarch, its arrival and its entourage.

=Oddities (Bugs)=
Almost everything on this page could be called an oddity. Because of their unexpected usability, some may also be referred to as “undocumented features.” Others, however, are simply odd and not particularly useful, yet I hesitate to call them “bugs.”
* If a certain threshold is reached that makes an elected position electable, and the triggering event that initiates this evaluation is an assumption, then the resulting assumption works partially as an election. It referred to in the messages as an election and the [REJECTED_CREATURE]-token is not applied, like it is with assumptions.

=Examples=

===The Founder===
The founder is a single dwarf, appointed at embark. They will be the only one ever to have this position and are not replaceable. When they lose their position some way, the position will not be assumed by another dwarf.
{{gamedata|title=The Founder|
[POSITION:THE_FOUNDER]
[NAME:the founder:founders]
[NUMBER:1]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[REJECTED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL] - will only be filled at embark, but not assumable later.
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:THE_FOUNDER] - not unassignable, also cannot be assigned to a [SQUAD] position.
[PRECEDENCE:200]
Non APPOINTED_BY
Non ELECTED
Optional: Add responsibilities to make the game select a unit with certain skills.
}}
===Marriage bar===
Dwarven matrons are held in great honour. Upon marriage, a female dwarf is no longer expected to perform menial labour. All dwarven males hold this position by default, granting their spouses exemption from menial work.

The position becomes available with the arrival of the first migrants; otherwise, on embark, it would be assumed by females. Its succession rule is non-functional, but this prevents the player from unassigning the position. A squad size of 1 and the succession rules together prevent a unit from assuming the position more than once.

With precedence set to NONE, the position name is hidden, while LAND_NAME remains visible on the nobles screen. All married females receive the suffix “, Mrs.” and are marked as Nobles.

The practical usefulness of this position is debatable, but it serves as a clear demonstration of several mechanics.
{{gamedata|title=Mrs. Urist|

[POSITION:MRS_URIST]
[NUMBER:300]
[SITE]
[ALLOWED_CREATURE:DWARF:MALE]
Not APPOINTED_BY
Not ELECTED
[LAND_NAME:Dwarven male]
[NAME:dwarven male:dwarven male]
[PRECEDENCE:NONE]
[SPOUSE_FEMALE:, Mrs.:spouses]
[MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION_SPOUSE]
[REQUIRES_POPULATION:8]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:MONARCH]
[SQUAD:1:member:members]
}}
===The Archduke===
The archduke is the leader of the civilization, but exists only from landholder 4-level. Until then, its position remains vacant. When a settlement is elevated to tier 4 (grand duke), the grand duke can appoint the ruler of the civilisation, the archduke. Because of 'Premature Succession', they themself inherit that position immediately, but only when in fortress mode. Its heir then becomes grand duke.
{{gamedata|title=The Archduke| no POSITION:MONARCH or other PRECEDENCE:1

[POSITION:THE_ARCHDUKE]
[NAME:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_MALE:archduke:archdukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:archduchess:archduchesses]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[NUMBER:1]
[PRECEDENCE:1]
[SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[APPOINTED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]
(add additional monarch-stuff, like spouse name, demands etc.)

[POSITION:GRAND_DUKE]
[NAME:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_MALE:grand duke:grand dukes]
[NAME_FEMALE:grand duchess:grand duchesses]
[NUMBER:AS_NEEDED]
[LAND_HOLDER:4]
// Optional ...
[PRECEDENCE:19]
[LAND_NAME:a archduchy]
[RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_MAKING]
[RESPONSIBILITY:RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS]
[SUCCESSION:BY_HEIR]
[APPOINTED_BY:THE_ARCHDUKE]
(add additional landholder-stuff)

!!add to [POSITION:DUKE]
[REPLACED_BY:GRAND_DUKE]

}}
{{Category|Modding}}
{{Category|Entities}}
{{Category|Guides}}

Demon

2026-04-28T09:22:37Z

Silverwing235: /* Containment */ methods that are ''that'' inspired, IMO, do not get to be called 'stupid'

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits - they are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population, specified as 5-10 in the raws, appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, fire-breath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door. The ones that can't open doors will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in your [[stupid dwarf trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Demon

2026-04-28T09:14:52Z

Silverwing235: /* Overview */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits - they are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population, specified as 5-10 in the raws, appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, fire-breath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|stupid dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door. The ones that can't open doors will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in your [[stupid dwarf trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Demon

2026-04-28T09:05:19Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{spoiler}}

[[File:demon_preview.png|right]]'''Demons''' {{Tile|&|7:0}} are procedurally-generated [[creature]]s who inhabit the [[Underworld]]. These immense, malicious and formidably powerful beasts are among the most powerful enemies in the game in both [[fortress mode]] and [[adventurer mode]]. They are not available to be spawned in the [[object testing arena]].

Graphically, the sprites that demons use will be of randomly-generated creatures, with random colors, that resemble the generated appearance they've been given. This same setup is used for other procedurally-generated creatures, such as [[megabeast]]s, [[angel]]s, and some [[experiment]]s.

== Overview ==
{{imagefix|[[File:demon_icon.png|left]]|8}}[[File:Assdemon.png|thumb|right|300px|"Etar Patternedtombs was a mint green demon. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered ass twisted into humanoid form. It undulates rhythmically. Its mint green feathers are patchy. Beware its deadly gas!" ([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76346.msg2667300#msg2667300 post]).]]Demons inhabit the Underworld. They are randomly generated at worldgen, creating unique [[fun]] for every player. Examples of possible demons include giant centipedes made of ash that hunger for blood, eyeless mosquitoes that spit toxins, and emaciated fruitbats with giant clicking mandibles. The number of different types of demon created during world generation is closely related to world size, and it can be directly controlled with [[advanced world generation]] – a world generated with "{{tt|Number of Demon Types}}" set to {{tt|0}} in advanced world generation will not have any demons in it.

[[File:demon_desc_v50_preview.png|thumb|300px|right|Description of a demon.]]All demons share certain traits. They are [[Creature token#SUPERNATURAL|supernatural]], [[fanciful]], evil-aligned creatures represented by an ampersand with a randomized [[color]]. They are all able to swim in and [[Amphibious|breathe]] water and magma, and [[Building destroyer|destroy buildings]]. Furthermore, they are [[Trapavoid|immune to traps]], [[No Pain|pain]], fear, nausea, [[No Stun|stunning]], [[No Exert|exertion]], dizziness, fevers, fire, any sort of poison, and have fixed body temperature, thus are unaffected by extremes of heat and cold (even if made of materials that would suggest otherwise). Roughly half possess [[Creature_token#EXTRAVISION|extravision]]. They are very large (size 10,000,000, smaller than a [[megabeast]], but larger than a [[giant]] and 167 times the size of a [[dwarf]]). They don't require sleep, food, or drink. All non-unique demons start out at Accomplished [[skill]] level in the following combat skills: wrestling, biting, striking, kicking, fighting, archery, dodging, and observing. Unique demons start out at Grand Master in the same skills. All unique demons, and roughly a half of non-unique ones, possess intelligence ([[Creature token#CAN_LEARN|<code>[CAN_LEARN]</code>]] + [[Creature token#CAN_SPEAK|<code>[CAN_SPEAK]</code>]]), so demons you face may well have developed their skills to a higher level than they began with; however, their skills cannot rust to a lower level. The initial wave spawns exactly one frame after you open the Underworld; the amount spawned can range from 10 to over 100. Demons inhabiting the Underworld spawn in groups of 1-5 individuals. The size of their population, specified as 5-10 in the raws, appears to be irrelevant, as the game makes all inhabitants of the Underworld spawn in limitless numbers. As long as the Underworld is unsealed, demons will continue to wander in from the edges of the map indefinitely, due to having populations that are (functionally) infinite.

Demons receive large bonuses to every physical [[attribute]] except agility, and to the mental attributes of focus and willpower (also analytical ability, memory, linguistic ability, and social awareness, but those are less relevant). Many, but not all, are capable of flight. They may possess a wide variety of special attacks, including webbing, firebreath, poisonous appendages, toxic spittle or poison breath. Inorganic or zombie demons are especially difficult to kill; they can be killed by bisection, decapitation, or pulping via blunt weapons (inorganic blobs can only be killed in this manner), but this is far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary dwarf.

Demons of each species can be all genderless, all male, or all female, or have both male and female castes. The latter can breed if given enough time. All demons are born adults, and immediately reach their full size after being born. They have a [[pet|pet value]] of 2000☼, but cannot be tamed, and you are rather unlikely to capture one. If you have deactivated compressed saves, the raws for a given world's demons (as well as [[forgotten beast]]s, [[titan]]s, [[werebeast]]s, etc.) can be found in the [[Saved game folder|world.dat]] of its save folder. Blob/inorganic demons tend to be genderless and non-sapient, but more research is required on this.

Due to their somewhat spoilery nature – new players are unlikely to know they exist, creating [[Fun|much surprise]] when they inevitably dig too deep – veteran ''Dwarf Fortress'' players tend to hide the existence of demons by giving them nicknames, the most famous being '''Hidden Fun Stuff''' and '''clowns''', with the Underworld being their "circus". Unique demons (see below), by extension, are usually referred to as the '''ringleaders'''.

Dwarves may [[Preferences|like]] a species of demon for their ''horrifying features'', their ''rhythmic undulations'' or their ''bloated appearance''.

== Their interaction with the world ==
Certain types of demons, those described as "being twisted into humanoid form" and marked with {{token|UNIQUE_DEMON|c}} instead of {{token|DEMON|c}} in world.dat, will occasionally escape the underworld. This happens by the aid of a [[deity]] through a ritual conducted with an [[artifact]] [[slab]]. It is most common that the demon and deity share a sphere, though it is not a requirement. Once they are in the mortal world, they will gain rule over a [[goblin]] [[civilization]] – each goblin faction in the world will be led by a unique demon, and attempting to create a world without demons in it through [[advanced world generation]] will lead to goblins being locked away in the underworld until a dwarf civilization digs too deep. As noted in [[Legends|legends mode]], these demons will occasionally make journeys to the [[Cavern|depths of the world]] and tame the creatures that dwell in them – most specifically, species with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token – going from [[giant rat]]s to [[voracious cave crawler]]s and [[cave dragon]]s. Presumably, this is how goblin civilizations gain access to these creatures to use them in [[siege]]s.

Demons may also arise when a dwarven civilization digs too deep in [[world generation|worldgen]] – the dwarves have a chance to fight them off, but, most of the time, the fortress will be taken over by goblins under a demonic ruler.

Found within the goblins' [[dark fortress]]es are demonic [[Underworld spire|spires]] made of [[slade]], whose lowermost levels lead directly into the Underworld. They will also create slade [[vault]]s, whose treasure is guarded by incredibly powerful and dangerous [[angel]]s. If you can manage to fight off those freakishly strong beings ([[Fun|don't expect to by the way]]), you can find in the vault's centre the slab that contains the demon's true name. Learning this name allows your adventurer to either banish it back to the Underworld or bind it to your servitude. Although you will have a next to unkillable super soldier on your side if you opt for the latter, it's more of a bragging-rights reward, if anything – getting past the angels already requires pretty much being a god among men.

<gallery class="center" widths="400px" heights="184px">
File:Demon banish.png|Banishing a demon back to the Underworld
File:Demon compel service.png|Compelling service from demon
</gallery>

In [[fortress mode]], goblin law-giver demons may arrive as part of a goblin siege and are most of the time very dangerous.{{verify}}

Demons can (and, in most cases, will) spread sphere-aligned evil from sites they control. Nightmare or darkness demons will spread regions filled with [[bogeymen]], death demons will spread reanimating evil regions, and so on. The evil-spreading can be reversed if the demon is slain or their site conquered or razed (e.g. through a [[raid]].)

Depending on their spheres, demons may also be granted abilities similar to those of [[necromancer]]s. Death demons are able to create [[experiment]]s and raise corpses and [[intelligent undead]], though they do not raise corpses in world gen because they would be hostile to the goblins they rule. Nightmare demons may be able to summon [[nightmare]]s and [[bogeymen]].

== Demon generation ==
When generating a demon, the game begins by generating a table of demon subtypes (beast, flying spirit, humanoid beast, unique) and their difficulties. The subtype determines which [[random creature profile]]s are available, with humanoid demons requiring a humanoidable shape (the same as [[werebeast]]s) and flying spirits being made of an intangible material like snow or flame. The {{token|DIFFICULTY}} of a demon is used during generation to set its size.

A demon receives [[sphere]]s, one chosen from the list of evil spheres (such as misery, death, or torture) and one to two additional non-good spheres that don't conflict. Like other procedural creatures, they are tweaked from their creature profile. It will be granted a few "extra" features, like a tail, a trunk, or a shell, and a flavorful descriptor (such as "it knows and intones the names of all it encounters"). A tweak common to evil creatures has some feature (such as its eyes, nose or skin) be removed. Unless their creature profile already possesses a special attack, demons receive a strong attack tweak such as a poisonous sting, toxic breath, or fire breath.

Demons have a varied name generation scheme, comprised of a base noun (demon, devil, etc) and an adjective derived from their features, like their color, material, or species profile. Corporeal demons will be named either demon, devil, fiend, brute, or monster. Intangible demons instead pick from spirit, ghost, banshee, haunt, phantom, specter, or wraith.

== Strategy ==
[[File:Demon_Size.png|thumb|right|200px|Estimated size comparison between a typical demon and a dwarf.]]

Of all of the challenges facing a player, defeating a demon horde is probably the most difficult, unless you are using certain [[trap]] schemes – and even then, you will need to take special precautions.

=== Containment ===
Containment is the simplest strategy for dealing with demons. A simple constructed wall will block any demon. Because of their building destroyer status, demons cannot be contained via locked doors. However, indestructible artifact-quality portals can stop them, as can some bridges. As building destroyers can only destroy objects on the same z-level, a [[floor grate]] or forbidden [[hatch cover]] on a staircase/channel will also block movement. It may be difficult to lure demons away from artifact furniture, should the area need to be accessed to reset a trap. If using [[bridge]]s, be aware that any raising bridge that lands on a demon will deconstruct, and that demons can easily have internal temperatures greatly exceeding the melting points of [[steel]] or [[iron]], leading to deconstruction as they pass over them. Because of their vast numbers, containment is an important part of any attempt to defeat them – fighting two groups of 25 demons is much easier than fighting one group of 50.

One particular gentleman, AussieGuy on the Bay12 forums, has found an ingenious method for disposing of an entire demonic invasion at once: a [[Megaprojects|stupid dwarven trick]] known as "the dwarven checkerboard".([http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94140.0 Source])

When using forbidden hatches to control flow of demons, note that some demons may be spawned with CANOPENDOORS to be not set, so once you unforbid the hatch, only the demons that can open doors will go through the door. The ones that can't open doors will remain behind the hatch, even if it is passable.

=== Traps ===
Because all demons avoid traps, trapping demons can be very difficult – but not impossible. Demons become vulnerable to traps when they are webbed, so if you can find a way to get web onto your traps, the demons will be affected as any other creature (including your own dwarves!) would be.

Alternatively, advanced triggered traps may be used. Demons do not set off [[pressure plate]]s, but if you can contain them, retracting upright spikes, casting them into [[obsidian]], or caving a portion of mountain onto them are all effective. Any plan involving these kind of traps must involve both a way to bait the demons to where you want them and a way to keep the demons where you want them. Tame animals appear to work well as bait, but need to be replaced as they're killed. Bridges can be used to contain the demons, but be wary of the risks of deconstruction as described above.

Many traps need to be designed with the potential for extreme temperatures in mind. Obsidian trappers may find water used in the casting process boiling into steam before it contacts magma. Frequently, demons made of fire or steam explode on death, broiling nearby creatures and furniture. This effect can destroy upright spikes, leaving you with a trap chamber full of demons that you have no way to deal with. Demons do not destroy supports directly, but a hot enough demon may cause the destruction of nearby supports, just through heat damage. A clever dwarf might find a way to turn that to their advantage, if only such a thing as a clever dwarf existed.

=== Ranged combat ===
Ranged combat sounds appealing, especially in the face of demons that explode with unimaginable heat upon death, but should be considered carefully. Most demons have vastly more powerful ranged attacks than marksdwarves have. Demons made of weak materials can be easily killed or dismembered by bolts, but inorganic demons composed of stronger stuff will only suffer chipped "bones".

[[Fortification]]s are appealing, as they can be dug directly into [[adamantine]] without ever exposing your fortress to a path to the demons. Even demons made out of steam cannot pass through a fortification unless it is submerged in 7/7 water or magma. Demons with syndrome attacks may attack through fortifications even without a path, although they appear to do so less frequently than if they have a path.

Still, should you contain a group of demons composed of weaker materials, marksdwarves can be very effective.

=== Melee combat ===
Demons can be very frightening melee opponents, as each one alone is nearly the size of a [[megabeast]], extremely fast, and has tremendous natural combat skills. That would be bad enough, but there tend to be pages of them rather than individuals. However, demons can still be defeated in melee combat.

Despite their powerful attacks, many demons are made up of very flimsy materials, such as salt, snow, steam, or filth. A strong punch can decapitate creatures like this. Some demons, however, can be made of much harder materials, and it can be very difficult to bring down a demon composed of minerals or armor-quality metal. Blunt weapons can be reasonably effective against weaker-material demons by severing limbs and body parts despite blunt status, but are not nearly as effective against demons as they are against earthly foes that suffer from pain and blood loss; without internal organs or blood loss, piercing weapons are relatively ineffective. Good slashing weapons can reliably take down demons of any material type.

The challenge of melee combat is how to deal with an enormous number of strong combatants while protecting against area-of-effect syndrome attacks and death explosions. Restraining visibility via a labyrinthine battleground is a good start. The area effects suggest meeting them with successive small waves of melee dwarves, but if the dwarves are too few, they'll be butchered by hundreds of angry demons before making a dent.

In all cases, your demon-fighting melee dwarves should be very well armed and armored (steel and adamantine) and Legendary in some, if not all, of the relevant combat skills.

=== Clean-up ===
Unfortunately, once the wave of demons has been dealt with, it's not yet over. [[Syndrome]]-bearing dust and blood may litter the battlefield and your survivors, and can be very difficult to isolate and contain. Some dwarves may carry burning items back from their encounters with very hot demons. Survivors should all pass through a shallow pool of water to wash them and their equipment of anything dangerous and to douse any flames. Any path used for the fight is best abandoned and walled up. Demons will continue to enter the Underworld from its map edges, as wildlife do on the surface, but path differently from the initial wave, content to wander through the Underworld even should a simple unobstructed path exist into your fortress.

== Killed demons ==
Only unintelligent demons can be butchered, and butchering them yields products similar to those from [[forgotten beast]]s, including copious amounts of [[meat]] and [[bone]]s, vividly-colored [[hair]], [[feather]]s, [[scale]]s or [[chitin]], and [[shell]]s, if the demon had one. All materials obtained from demons have a value multiplier of 1, and aren't appreciably better than their mundane counterparts.

Inorganic demons cannot be butchered, and after killing them you obtain only a massive demonic corpse to use in your [[stupid dwarf trick]].

{{D for Dwarf}}

Little do demons know that though their claws and fire cannot pierce the [[adamantine]] sealing them away, a simple [[copper]] [[pick]] (or any other kind of pick, for that matter) can dig right through it with enough time and effort. Armok forbid these unholy creatures ever get their hands on one.

{{gamedata|title=Example raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_1]
[NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[CASTE_NAME:brine brute:brine brutes:brine brute]
[GENERATED]
[DEMON]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:10]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:10]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:1:5]
[FEMALE]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:FISHING]
[SPHERE:HUNTING]
[SPHERE:MISERY]
[SPHERE:TORTURE]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT]
[BODY:RCP_BASIC_BODY_STANCE_WITH_HEAD_FLAG:RCP_TWO_FLIGHTLESS_WINGS]
[TISSUE:UNIFORM_TIS]
[TISSUE_NAME:tissue:NP]
[TISSUE_MATERIAL:SALT]
[TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID_POWDER]
[MUSCULAR]
[FUNCTIONAL]
[STRUCTURAL]
[RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1]
[CONNECTS]
[TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:UNIFORM_TIS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[NOT_LIVING]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
[COLOR:7:0:1]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FLIER]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]( [GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Maximum Flight Speed:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:FLY:Faster Flight:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:FLY:Fast Flight:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:FLY:Fly:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]) [GAIT:FLY:Slow Flight:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:FLY:Hover:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Scramble:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Faster Crawl:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Fast Crawl:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Crawl:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Slow Crawl:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:8900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A towering slug composed of salt. It has wings and it has a gaunt appearance.]
[PREFSTRING:horrifying features]
}}

{{gamedata|title=Example [UNIQUE_DEMON] raws (as extracted from world.sav)|[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DEMON_3]
[NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[CASTE_NAME:clear devil:clear devils:clear devilish]
[GENERATED]
[UNIQUE_DEMON]
[SPREAD_EVIL_SPHERES_IF_RULER]
[NATURAL_SKILL:WRESTLING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:BITE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:MELEE_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:RANGED_COMBAT:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:DODGING:14]
[NATURAL_SKILL:SITUATIONAL_AWARENESS:14]
[CAN_LEARN]
[CAN_SPEAK]
[DIFFICULTY:10]
[NO_GENDER]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:ENDURANCE:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:RECUPERATION:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:WILLPOWER:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:LINGUISTIC_ABILITY:450:1050:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MUSICALITY:0:333:666:1000:2333:3666:5000]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:700:1300:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:BASHFUL:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:DISDAIN_ADVICE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:CHEER_PROPENSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:GRATITUDE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CRUELTY:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:PRIDE:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREED:100:100:100]
[NO_DRINK]
[NO_EAT]
[NO_SLEEP]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[MAGMA_VISION]
[EVIL]
[FANCIFUL]
[SUPERNATURAL]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[PETVALUE:2000]
[GRASSTRAMPLE:20]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[SWIMS_INNATE]
[TRAPAVOID]
[NOPAIN]
[NOSTUN]
[NONAUSEA]
[NOFEAR]
[NOEXERT]
[NO_DIZZINESS]
[NO_FEVERS]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[SPHERE:BLIGHT]
[SPHERE:DEATH]
[SPHERE:MURDER]
[SPHERE:TWILIGHT]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000]
[CREATURE_TILE:'&']
[BODY:RCP_UPPER_BODY:RCP_LOWER_BODY:RCP_NECK:RCP_HEAD:RCP_TWO_PART_ARMS:RCP_TWO_PART_LEGS:RCP_TAIL:RCP_4_FINGERS:RCP_4_TOES:RCP_LUNGS:RCP_HEART:RCP_GUTS:RCP_THROAT:RCP_SPINE:RCP_UPPER_SPINE:RCP_BRAIN:RCP_SKULL:RCP_MOUTH:RCP_TONGUE:RCP_TEETH:RCP_RIBS]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[EQUIPS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:SKIN]
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:SKIN]
[REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:SCALE:SCALE_TEMPLATE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SCALE:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[HAS_NERVES]
[NOBREATHE]
[EXTRAVISION]
[FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:SCALE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CLEAR]
[COLOR:0:0:1]
[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SCALE:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:GOO:GOO_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:GOO:LIQUID]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CLAW:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:CLAW:CLAW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:CLAW:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:CLAW:FRONT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:demon sickness]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:DEMON_3:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[SYN_CONTACT]
[SYN_INHALED]
[SYN_INGESTED]
[CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:100:PROB:100:START:565:PEAK:1649:END:4938:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DELAYS:SIZE_DILUTES]
[SECRETION:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:POISON:LIQUID:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SCALE]
[FIREIMMUNE]
[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:FSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK:TSCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:STANCE:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CLAW]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:2:2]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
[ATTACK_FLAG_BAD_MULTIATTACK]
[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10040]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:725:10:3:2175:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:1450:5:3:2175:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:2175:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:SWIM:Swim:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:3900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:5900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Sprint:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:WALK:Run:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:WALK:Jog:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:WALK:Walk:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Stroll:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:WALK:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:225:10:3:675:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:450:5:3:675:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:675:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:1900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:2900:NO_BUILD_UP:0]
[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic eyeless chameleon twisted into humanoid form. It squirms and fidgets. Its clear scales are large and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions!]
}}

{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Amphibious}}
{{Category|Building destroyer}}
{{Category|HFS}}
{{Category|Fanciful}}
{{Category|Fire immune}}
{{Category|Learns}}
{{Category|No Exert}}
{{Category|No Pain}}
{{Category|No Stun}}
[[ru:Demon]]

{{Translation
| dwarven = uthgúr
| elvish = slevina
| goblin = arstruk
| human = rohir
}}

Elections

2026-04-27T14:48:39Z

Silverwing235: grammar

{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}

Site-level nobles, such as the [[Mayor]], are '''elected''' for one year. Elections take place at exactly 4:00 PM on the 17th day of summer (specifically, 20000 season-ticks after the beginning of the season). If you don't have this position slot filled, then the election will happen at the beginning of every season, rather than just summer.{{Verify}} If an election doesn't trigger after gaining the minimum amount of dwarves needed for whatever reason, assigning the previous position as "leave vacant" will force an election.

When an election happens, it's usually the dwarf with the highest social skills who gets elected. In previous versions [[children]] had nothing to do but socialize, and did, therefore, gain lots of social skill, which carries over when a child becomes an adult at age 18 and therefore an 18-year-old mayor was not a rare sight. But in the current version, children prefer playing over socializing, and thus will only rarely become a mayor (with the possible exception of migrant children, who already had high social skill on arrival, and unhappy children constantly complaining). Prime candidates for mayor are [[vampire]]s (who tend to have high social skills, if they have been around for a long time), tamed [[gremlin]]s, and other non-working citizens of your fortress, since they cannot be put to work either. Any citizen can be elected.

For responsibilities or positions that use more than one skill, no skill takes priority in electing a creature: an accomplished comedian is more qualified for the TRADE responsibility than a skilled appraiser. In fact the sum of skill levels (uncapped) of all relevant skills (for that position) are compared and whoever has the highest sum gets the position. A creature may be elected to multiple positions at the same time.

==Civilization nobles==
If noble positions at civ-level are created by modding, they can also be [[Position_token#ELECTED]]. In worldgen, there is no functional difference between ELECTED and no appointment rule except that ELECTED nobles tend to have high social skills and/or skills related to the position, while non-elected ones are assigned randomly. They are not re-elected after a certain period of time. This means that they stay in this position for life and their successor will be elected again.

{{Category|Fortress mode}}
{{Category|Game mechanics}}
{{Category|Nobles}}
{{Category|Elected Nobles}}
[[ru:Elections]]

Token

2026-04-20T14:02:09Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
{{Modding}}
In ''Dwarf Fortress'', a '''token''' is a piece of text that defines the properties of an object. An "object" could be a material, a type of tissue, an organ, a piece of armor, a creature, a biome, a civilization, or anything else in the game; a "property" could be how large something is, what it is made from, its melting temperature, its name, its biome preference (for civilizations) or anything else that makes it unique. All information associated with the properties of an object in the game is defined using tokens. Tokens are used in the [[raws]], which can be easily [[modding|modified]], allowing users to create (and distribute) new content.

:* [[Audio]] tokens define audio metadata, and the triggers to play music and sound.
:* [[Biome token]]s reference [[biome|environments]] for creatures, plants and [[civilization|entities]].
:* [[Building token]]s define buildings.
:* [[Body token]]s determine bodily structure and materials.
:** [[Bodygloss]] tokens perform a single-word substitution of a creature's body parts.
:* [[Body detail plan token]]s define some details of a body, similar to body tokens.
:* [[Creature token]]s determine the properties of creatures, while [[Creature variation token]]s are used to modify creatures.
:* [[Descriptor color token]]s - not to be confused with [[color scheme]]s - define colors used in text-based descriptions, while [[Descriptor pattern token]]s define color patterns, and [[Descriptor shape token]]s define [[shape]]s.
:* [[Entity token]]s define entities, or [[civilization]]s.
:** [[Position token]]s define [[noble]] titles and administrative positions in entities.
:* [[Graphics token]]s define tile-based [[graphics]].
:* [[Item token]]s reference the most basic form of items (made specific by material tokens). Item tokens are mainly used in [[reactions]].
:* [[Item definition token]]s are used to define various types of item.
:** [[Ammo token]]s define ammunition, such as arrows and bolts.
:** [[Armor token]]s define armor.
:** [[Instrument token]]s define instruments.
:** [[Trap component token]]s define weapons used in traps.
:** [[Tool token]]s define tools, similar to weapon tokens.
:** [[Weapon token]]s define weapons.
:* [[Interaction token]]s define interactions.
:* [[Labor token]]s reference labors.
:* [[Language token]]s define a language's vocabulary. Since fictional languages in ''Dwarf Fortress'' are currently only used in names, language tokens do not define grammar.
:* [[Material token]]s are used to refer to materials, similar to item tokens.
:* [[Material definition token]]s are used to define materials that appear in a number of object types.
:** [[Inorganic material definition token]]s are specific to defining inorganic materials.
:* [[Plant token]]s define plants.
:* [[Reaction]] tokens define crafting recipes.
:* [[Skill token]]s reference skills.
:* [[Speech file]]s define strings used for certain lines of dialog and book titles.
:* [[Syndrome token]]s define syndromes (ie: conditions, diseases, bonuses and maluses).
:* [[Tissue definition token]]s define tissues.
:* [[Unit type token]]s reference by tilesets and entities, for purposes of professions and the like.
:* [[World token]]s are used in [[advanced world generation]].

Also note the ``[LOG_CURRENT_ENTRY]`` token, available for all object types. For information regarding use, see [[Modding#Modifying the vanilla objects]].

== See also ==
{{catbox|Tokens}}

* [[Raw file]]
* [[Modding]]
* [[Lua scripting]]

[[category:Modding]]
[[ru:Token]]

Token

2026-04-20T12:03:35Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
{{Modding}}
In ''Dwarf Fortress'', a '''token''' is a piece of text that defines the properties of an object. An "object" could be a material, a type of tissue, an organ, a piece of armor, a creature, a biome, a civilization, or anything else in the game; a "property" could be how large something is, what it is made from, its melting temperature, its name, its biome preference (for civilizations) or anything else that makes it unique. All information associated with the properties of an object in the game is defined using tokens. Tokens are used in the [[raws]], which can be easily [[modding|modified]], allowing users to create (and distribute) new content.

:* [[Audio]] tokens define audio metadata and the triggers to play music and sound.
:* [[Biome token]]s reference [[biome|environments]] for creatures, plants and [[civilization|entities]].
:* [[Building token]]s define buildings.
:* [[Body token]]s determine bodily structure and materials.
:** [[Bodygloss]] tokens perform a single-word substitution of a creature's body parts.
:* [[Body detail plan token]]s define some details of a body, similar to body tokens.
:* [[Creature token]]s determine the properties of creatures.
:* [[Creature variation token]]s are used to modify creatures.
:* [[Descriptor color token]]s - not to be confused with [[color scheme]]s - define colors used in text-based descriptions, while [[Descriptor pattern token]]s define color patterns, and [[Descriptor shape token]]s define [[shape]]s.
:* [[Entity token]]s define entities, or [[civilization]]s.
:** [[Position token]]s define [[noble]] titles and administrative positions in entities.
:* [[Graphics token]]s define tile-based [[graphics]].
:* [[Item token]]s reference the most basic form of items (made specific by material tokens). Item tokens are mainly used in [[reactions]].
:* [[Item definition token]]s are used to define various types of item.
:** [[Ammo token]]s define ammunition, such as arrows and bolts.
:** [[Armor token]]s define armor.
:** [[Instrument token]]s define instruments.
:** [[Trap component token]]s define weapons used in traps.
:** [[Tool token]]s define tools, similar to weapon tokens.
:** [[Weapon token]]s define weapons.
:* [[Interaction token]]s define interactions.
:* [[Labor token]]s reference labors.
:* [[Language token]]s define a language's vocabulary. Since fictional languages in ''Dwarf Fortress'' are currently only used in names, language tokens do not define grammar.
:* [[Material token]]s are used to refer to materials, similar to item tokens.
:* [[Material definition token]]s are used to define materials that appear in a number of object types.
:** [[Inorganic material definition token]]s are specific to defining inorganic materials.
:* [[Plant token]]s define plants.
:* [[Reaction]] tokens define crafting recipes.
:* [[Skill token]]s reference skills.
:* [[Speech file]]s define strings used for certain lines of dialog and book titles.
:* [[Syndrome token]]s define syndromes (ie: conditions, diseases, bonuses and maluses).
:* [[Tissue definition token]]s define tissues.
:* [[Unit type token]]s reference by tilesets and entities, for purposes of professions and the like.
:* [[World token]]s are used in [[advanced world generation]].

Also note the ``[LOG_CURRENT_ENTRY]`` token, available for all object types. For information regarding use, see [[Modding#Modifying the vanilla objects]].

== See also ==
{{catbox|Tokens}}

* [[Raw file]]
* [[Modding]]
* [[Lua scripting]]

[[category:Modding]]
[[ru:Token]]

Token

2026-04-19T08:48:25Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
{{Modding}}
In ''Dwarf Fortress'', a '''token''' is a piece of text that defines the properties of an object. An "object" could be a material, a type of tissue, an organ, a piece of armor, a creature, a biome, a civilization, or anything else in the game; a "property" could be how large something is, what it is made from, its melting temperature, its name, its biome preference (for civilizations) or anything else that makes it unique. All information associated with the properties of an object in the game is defined using tokens. Tokens are used in the [[raws]], which can be easily [[modding|modified]], allowing users to create (and distribute) new content.

:* [[Audio]] tokens define audio metadata and the triggers to play music and sound.
:* [[Biome token]]s reference [[biome|environments]] for creatures, plants and [[civilization|entities]].
:* [[Building token]]s define buildings.
:* [[Body token]]s determine bodily structure and materials.
:** [[Bodygloss]] tokens perform a single-word substitution of a creature's body parts.
:* [[Body detail plan token]]s define some details of a body, similar to body tokens.
:* [[Creature token]]s determine the properties of creatures.
:* [[Creature variation token]]s are used to modify creatures.
:* [[Descriptor color token]]s define colors used in text-based descriptions. Not to be confused with [[color scheme]]s.
:* [[Descriptor pattern token]]s define color patterns.
:* [[Descriptor shape token]]s define [[shape]]s.
:* [[Entity token]]s define entities, or [[civilization]]s.
:** [[Position token]]s define [[noble]] titles and administrative positions in entities.
:* [[Graphics token]]s define tile-based [[graphics]].
:* [[Item token]]s reference the most basic form of items (made specific by material tokens). Item tokens are mainly used in [[reactions]].
:* [[Item definition token]]s are used to define various types of item.
:** [[Ammo token]]s define ammunition, such as arrows and bolts.
:** [[Armor token]]s define armor.
:** [[Instrument token]]s define instruments.
:** [[Trap component token]]s define weapons used in traps.
:** [[Tool token]]s define tools, similar to weapon tokens.
:** [[Weapon token]]s define weapons.
:* [[Interaction token]]s define interactions.
:* [[Labor token]]s reference labors.
:* [[Language token]]s define a language's vocabulary. Since fictional languages in ''Dwarf Fortress'' are currently only used in names, language tokens do not define grammar.
:* [[Material token]]s are used to refer to materials, similar to item tokens.
:* [[Material definition token]]s are used to define materials that appear in a number of object types.
:** [[Inorganic material definition token]]s are specific to defining inorganic materials.
:* [[Plant token]]s define plants.
:* [[Reaction]] tokens define crafting recipes.
:* [[Skill token]]s reference skills.
:* [[Speech file]]s define strings used for certain lines of dialog and book titles.
:* [[Syndrome token]]s define syndromes (ie: conditions, diseases, bonuses and maluses).
:* [[Tissue definition token]]s define tissues.
:* [[Unit type token]]s reference by tilesets and entities, for purposes of professions and the like.
:* [[World token]]s are used in [[advanced world generation]].

Also note the ``[LOG_CURRENT_ENTRY]`` token, available for all object types. For information regarding use, see [[Modding#Modifying the vanilla objects]].

== See also ==
{{catbox|Tokens}}

* [[Raw file]]
* [[Modding]]
* [[Lua scripting]]

[[category:Modding]]
[[ru:Token]]

World activities

2026-04-11T16:28:52Z

Silverwing235: /* Notes */

{{migrated article}}
{{old}}
{{Quality|Unrated}}
{{av}}

After [[world generation]], game worlds continue to develop and advance while time passes in-game, simulating off-screen various activities in the world outside of the player's influence and without their direct input, referred to as "world activation".

World activation happens when you start a new [[Fortress mode|fortress]] or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode game, during the two weeks that pass in the [[calendar]] when you begin. Otherwise, it happens as [[time]] passes as you play at normal fortress/adventurer speed. You can play many games of [[Fortress mode|fortress]] and/or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode in the same world, each building up its history.

==Types of activities==
Types of activities that are simulated during world activation:

===Succession===
[[Historical figure]]s can get married, have children, do their various jobs, and die: as can their children ''ad nauseam'', as they are also historical figures.

The various positions of [[nobles]] will either be inherited by another historical figure, or assigned to a new historical figure by the parent civilization when the position is [[Fun|vacated]] or they have an [[unfortunate accident]].
Conflicts over succession and illegitimate site ownership can emerge, and armed usurpations and insurrections can take place.

===Site changes===
[[Image:Legends_artifact_symbol_v50.07_01.png|800px|thumb|A legendary sword being made a symbol during world generation]]
Existing NPC [[site]]s are conquered, liberated, defended, destroyed, reclaimed and new sites are created[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf//index.php?topic=140544.msg6843526#msg6843526] while playing. Bandits will loot villages, armies will conquer cities, and forgotten beasts will ransack fortresses. Abandoned dwarven fortresses can be reclaimed later by the player.

As the player can do in [[fortress mode]], during [[world generation]] and [[world activities]]), certain [[item]]s can also be chosen as the symbol of a [[army|group]]'s administrative position. These items were either, upon construction, an artifact, or were later - but prior to becoming a symbol - made into an artifact by naming the item (ie. to sanctify someone; the item having been that someone's favorite possession).

===Movement===
Consequently, all kinds of creatures and groups travel around on the world map. However, others teleport. No, really.

The following groups teleport:

* [[Caravan]]s
* [[Diplomat]]s
* [[Migrant]]s
* [[Megabeast|The]] [[Semi-megabeast|various]] [[Forgotten beast|beasts]]

The rest physically travel on the map, including:

* [[Bandit]]s
* [[Refugee]]s
* [[Scholar]]s
* [[Thief|Thieves]]
* [[Quester]]s
* [[Religion|Religious]] professions such as [[prophet]]s, [[monk]]s or [[pilgrim]]s
* [[Army|Armies]] like siegers or other invaders

[[File:Df goblins distracted by elves.png|thumb|Screenshot showing Goblin civs prioritizing conquering the Elves down south above attacking the player fort (here highlighted with a yellow 'A' due to the rumour of artifacts.) ASCII mode.]]

[[Army|Armies]] move around the map while playing for various reasons, including site invasion (not just to the player site), harassment, searching for work, reclamation of sites and more. As invaders need to actually travel the world map to get to your site, embarking close to a site of potential invaders increases the chances of an invasion. Other factors that influence the probability of an invasion are the "effective" population of said site{{verify}}, in other words, how many soldiers the site can spare to attack you. While a site may have a high population, it may be occupied with other, more important campaigns than the player's site.

The asterisks {{DFtext|*}} on the fast [[travel map]] in adventure mode are creatures and armies moving around on the world map.

===Non-player adventurers===
[[Quester|Non-player adventurers]] will group up in parties and wander around, or adventure alone. They will also go on [[quest]]s to retrieve [[artifact]]s in play, which they receive from [[historical figure]]s that are in power, for example, a lord or noble from another site. For fortress mode, this manifests as [[visitor]]s coming to your fort and requesting you hand over artifacts. If you say no to them, they may try to steal it from you, or outright attack your fort.

In adventurer mode, this is more subtle: non-player adventurers can be found who are looking for artifacts, and may compete with you when you are trying to get artifacts, if they happen to be looking for the same artifact. If you are holding the artifact they seek (even if you are hiding it in your backpack), they will try to mug you (like [[bandit]]s) and may also attack you, follow you around, or vocally demand that you give them the artifact.

==Information==
{{DFtext|Greetings from the mountainhomes. Let's discuss our situation.|7:1}}

In an active fortress session, the player will get information about current events through the [[liaison]]. During the [[meeting]], communication of this information is implied. The actual information will appear on the [[Civilization and World Info]] screen, under the "News and rumors" tab.

== Notes ==
* In older versions, any world activity stopped after [[world generation]] finished. This is no longer the case since v0.40.01 and the changing of this is what is usually referred to as "world activation". "Restarting" [[world generation]] is not planned.

* Currently, when new sites are founded during fortress mode by other civilizations, ie. forest retreats, hamlets/towns, dark pits or hillocks, then the civ_id (and cur_owner_id) is not set properly (for the created site), which can potentially lead to problems. Also the cur_owner_id of a site is usually not updated, if another civilization takes over a site in fortress mode. Furthermore, in such cases, the flag "dead" (in the property "flags" of the entity) of the previous site government is not set to true. In such cases it can also happen, that a historical figure, who is created on-the-fly, to be the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR is not associated with any entity (eg. not belonging to any group) at all (despite being the forced administrator of the new government) and the historical figure can - in that case - ie. lack skills (info.skills is nil for that particular historical figure). In case of a destroyed site getting reclaimed by any civilization then the cur_owner_id will still be set to -1 after successfully reclaiming a site (as destroying a site does set the cur_owner_id to -1). Furthermore in case of new founded sites no entity-site link to the civilization might get created (and vice-versa, eg. the site does not get an entry under entity_links pointing to the new civ and the civ does not get an entry in site_links to the site). None of the above (except a forced administrator not associated with any group) can be seen without using tools like dfhack (ie. as legends and the game usually do not display these things, only the possible side-effects can be experienced in-game).

{{World}}
{{Category|World}}
{{Category|Legends mode}}

World activities

2026-04-11T16:26:57Z

Silverwing235: /* Types of activities */

{{migrated article}}
{{old}}
{{Quality|Unrated}}
{{av}}

After [[world generation]], game worlds continue to develop and advance while time passes in-game, simulating off-screen various activities in the world outside of the player's influence and without their direct input, referred to as "world activation".

World activation happens when you start a new [[Fortress mode|fortress]] or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode game, during the two weeks that pass in the [[calendar]] when you begin. Otherwise, it happens as [[time]] passes as you play at normal fortress/adventurer speed. You can play many games of [[Fortress mode|fortress]] and/or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode in the same world, each building up its history.

==Types of activities==
Types of activities that are simulated during world activation:

===Succession===
[[Historical figure]]s can get married, have children, do their various jobs, and die: as can their children ''ad nauseam'', as they are also historical figures.

The various positions of [[nobles]] will either be inherited by another historical figure, or assigned to a new historical figure by the parent civilization when the position is [[Fun|vacated]] or they have an [[unfortunate accident]].
Conflicts over succession and illegitimate site ownership can emerge, and armed usurpations and insurrections can take place.

===Site changes===
[[Image:Legends_artifact_symbol_v50.07_01.png|800px|thumb|A legendary sword being made a symbol during world generation]]
Existing NPC [[site]]s are conquered, liberated, defended, destroyed, reclaimed and new sites are created[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf//index.php?topic=140544.msg6843526#msg6843526] while playing. Bandits will loot villages, armies will conquer cities, and forgotten beasts will ransack fortresses. Abandoned dwarven fortresses can be reclaimed later by the player.

As the player can do in [[fortress mode]], during [[world generation]] and [[world activities]]), certain [[item]]s can also be chosen as the symbol of a [[army|group]]'s administrative position. These items were either, upon construction, an artifact, or were later - but prior to becoming a symbol - made into an artifact by naming the item (ie. to sanctify someone; the item having been that someone's favorite possession).

===Movement===
Consequently, all kinds of creatures and groups travel around on the world map. However, others teleport. No, really.

The following groups teleport:

* [[Caravan]]s
* [[Diplomat]]s
* [[Migrant]]s
* [[Megabeast|The]] [[Semi-megabeast|various]] [[Forgotten beast|beasts]]

The rest physically travel on the map, including:

* [[Bandit]]s
* [[Refugee]]s
* [[Scholar]]s
* [[Thief|Thieves]]
* [[Quester]]s
* [[Religion|Religious]] professions such as [[prophet]]s, [[monk]]s or [[pilgrim]]s
* [[Army|Armies]] like siegers or other invaders

[[File:Df goblins distracted by elves.png|thumb|Screenshot showing Goblin civs prioritizing conquering the Elves down south above attacking the player fort (here highlighted with a yellow 'A' due to the rumour of artifacts.) ASCII mode.]]

[[Army|Armies]] move around the map while playing for various reasons, including site invasion (not just to the player site), harassment, searching for work, reclamation of sites and more. As invaders need to actually travel the world map to get to your site, embarking close to a site of potential invaders increases the chances of an invasion. Other factors that influence the probability of an invasion are the "effective" population of said site{{verify}}, in other words, how many soldiers the site can spare to attack you. While a site may have a high population, it may be occupied with other, more important campaigns than the player's site.

The asterisks {{DFtext|*}} on the fast [[travel map]] in adventure mode are creatures and armies moving around on the world map.

===Non-player adventurers===
[[Quester|Non-player adventurers]] will group up in parties and wander around, or adventure alone. They will also go on [[quest]]s to retrieve [[artifact]]s in play, which they receive from [[historical figure]]s that are in power, for example, a lord or noble from another site. For fortress mode, this manifests as [[visitor]]s coming to your fort and requesting you hand over artifacts. If you say no to them, they may try to steal it from you, or outright attack your fort.

In adventurer mode, this is more subtle: non-player adventurers can be found who are looking for artifacts, and may compete with you when you are trying to get artifacts, if they happen to be looking for the same artifact. If you are holding the artifact they seek (even if you are hiding it in your backpack), they will try to mug you (like [[bandit]]s) and may also attack you, follow you around, or vocally demand that you give them the artifact.

==Information==
{{DFtext|Greetings from the mountainhomes. Let's discuss our situation.|7:1}}

In an active fortress session, the player will get information about current events through the [[liaison]]. During the [[meeting]], communication of this information is implied. The actual information will appear on the [[Civilization and World Info]] screen, under the "News and rumors" tab.

== Notes ==
* In older versions, any world activity stopped after [[world generation]] finished. This is no longer the case since v0.40.01 and the changing of this is what is usually referred to as "world activation". "Restarting" [[world generation]] is not planned.

* Currently when new sites are founded during fortress mode by other civilizations, ie. forest retreats, hamlets/towns, dark pits or hillocks, then the civ_id (and cur_owner_id) is not set properly (for the created site), which can potentially lead to problems. Also the cur_owner_id of a site is usually not updated, if another civilization takes over a site in fortress mode. Furthermore, in such cases, the flag "dead" (in the property "flags" of the entity) of the previous site government is not set to true. In such cases it can also happen, that a historical figure, who is created on-the-fly, to be the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR is not associated with any entity (eg. not belonging to any group) at all (despite being the forced administrator of the new government) and the historical figure can - in that case - ie. lack skills (info.skills is nil for that particular historical figure). In case of a destroyed site getting reclaimed by any civilization then the cur_owner_id will still be set to -1 after successfully reclaiming a site (as destroying a site does set the cur_owner_id to -1). Furthermore in case of new founded sites no entity-site link to the civilization might get created (and vice-versa, eg. the site does not get an entry under entity_links pointing to the new civ and the civ does not get an entry in site_links to the site). None of the above (except a forced administrator not associated with any group) can be seen without using tools like dfhack (ie. as legends and the game usually do not display these things, only the possible side-effects can be experienced in-game).

{{World}}
{{Category|World}}
{{Category|Legends mode}}

World activities

2026-04-10T13:45:55Z

Silverwing235: error correction

{{migrated article}}
{{old}}
{{Quality|Unrated}}
{{av}}

After [[world generation]], game worlds continue to develop and advance while time passes in-game, simulating off-screen various activities in the world outside of the player's influence and without their direct input, referred to as "world activation".

World activation happens when you start a new [[Fortress mode|fortress]] or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode game, during the two weeks that pass in the [[calendar]] when you begin. Otherwise, it happens as [[time]] passes as you play at normal fortress/adventurer speed. You can play many games of [[Fortress mode|fortress]] and/or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode in the same world, each building up its history.

==Types of activities==
Types of activities that are simulated during world activation:

===Succession===
[[Historical figure]]s can get married, have children, do their various jobs, and die. All of their children can do the same, as they are also historical figures.

The various positions of [[nobles]] will either be inherited by another historical figure, or assigned to a new historical figure by the parent civilization when the position is [[Fun|vacated]] or they have an [[unfortunate accident]].
Conflicts over succession and illegitimate site ownership can emerge, and armed usurpations and insurrections can take place.

===Site changes===
[[Image:Legends_artifact_symbol_v50.07_01.png|800px|thumb|A legendary sword being made a symbol during world generation]]
Existing NPC [[site]]s are conquered, liberated, defended, destroyed, reclaimed and new sites are created[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf//index.php?topic=140544.msg6843526#msg6843526] while playing. Bandits will loot villages, armies will conquer cities, and forgotten beasts will ransack fortresses. Abandoned dwarven fortresses can be reclaimed later by the player.

As the player can do in [[fortress mode]], during [[world generation]] and [[world activities]]), certain [[item]]s can also be chosen as the symbol of a [[army|group]]'s administrative position. These items were either, upon construction, an artifact, or were later - but prior to becoming a symbol - made into an artifact by naming the item (ie. to sanctify someone; the item having been that someone's favorite possession).

===Movement===
Consequently, all kinds of creatures and groups travel around on the world map. However, others teleport. No, really.

The following groups teleport:

* [[Caravan]]s
* [[Diplomat]]s
* [[Migrant]]s
* [[Megabeast|The]] [[Semi-megabeast|various]] [[Forgotten beast|beasts]]

The rest physically travel on the map, including:

* [[Bandit]]s
* [[Refugee]]s
* [[Scholar]]s
* [[Thief|Thieves]]
* [[Quester]]s
* [[Religion|Religious]] professions such as [[prophet]]s, [[monk]]s or [[pilgrim]]s
* [[Army|Armies]] like siegers or other invaders

[[File:Df goblins distracted by elves.png|thumb|Screenshot showing Goblin civs prioritizing conquering the Elves down south above attacking the player fort (here highlighted with a yellow 'A' due to the rumour of artifacts.) ASCII mode.]]

[[Army|Armies]] move around the map while playing for various reasons, including site invasion (not just to the player site), harassment, searching for work, reclamation of sites and more. As invaders need to actually travel the world map to get to your site, embarking close to a site of potential invaders increases the chances of an invasion. Other factors that influence the probability of an invasion are the "effective" population of said site{{verify}}, in other words, how many soldiers the site can spare to attack you. While a site may have a high population, it may be occupied with other, more important campaigns than the player's site.

The asterisks {{DFtext|*}} on the fast [[travel map]] in adventure mode are creatures and armies moving around on the world map.

===Non-player adventurers===
[[Quester|Non-player adventurers]] will group up in parties and wander around, or adventure alone. They will also go on [[quest]]s to retrieve [[artifact]]s in play, which they receive from [[historical figure]]s that are in power, for example, a lord or noble from another site. For fortress mode, this manifests as [[visitor]]s coming to your fort and requesting you hand over artifacts. If you say no to them, they may try to steal it from you, or outright attack your fort.

In adventurer mode, this is more subtle: non-player adventurers can be found who are looking for artifacts, and may compete with you when you are trying to get artifacts, if they happen to be looking for the same artifact. If you are holding the artifact they seek (even if you are hiding it in your backpack), they will try to mug you (like [[bandit]]s) and may also attack you, follow you around, or vocally demand that you give them the artifact.

==Information==
{{DFtext|Greetings from the mountainhomes. Let's discuss our situation.|7:1}}

In an active fortress session, the player will get information about current events through the [[liaison]]. During the [[meeting]], communication of this information is implied. The actual information will appear on the [[Civilization and World Info]] screen, under the "News and rumors" tab.

== Notes ==
* In older versions, any world activity stopped after [[world generation]] finished. This is no longer the case since v0.40.01 and the changing of this is what is usually referred to as "world activation". "Restarting" [[world generation]] is not planned.

* Currently when new sites are founded during fortress mode by other civilizations, ie. forest retreats, hamlets/towns, dark pits or hillocks, then the civ_id (and cur_owner_id) is not set properly (for the created site), which can potentially lead to problems. Also the cur_owner_id of a site is usually not updated, if another civilization takes over a site in fortress mode. Furthermore, in such cases, the flag "dead" (in the property "flags" of the entity) of the previous site government is not set to true. In such cases it can also happen, that a historical figure, who is created on-the-fly, to be the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR is not associated with any entity (eg. not belonging to any group) at all (despite being the forced administrator of the new government) and the historical figure can - in that case - ie. lack skills (info.skills is nil for that particular historical figure). In case of a destroyed site getting reclaimed by any civilization then the cur_owner_id will still be set to -1 after successfully reclaiming a site (as destroying a site does set the cur_owner_id to -1). Furthermore in case of new founded sites no entity-site link to the civilization might get created (and vice-versa, eg. the site does not get an entry under entity_links pointing to the new civ and the civ does not get an entry in site_links to the site). None of the above (except a forced administrator not associated with any group) can be seen without using tools like dfhack (ie. as legends and the game usually do not display these things, only the possible side-effects can be experienced in-game).

{{World}}
{{Category|World}}
{{Category|Legends mode}}

World activities

2026-04-10T11:01:19Z

Silverwing235: /* Site changes */ fix some of Anon's myopia

{{migrated article}}
{{old}}
{{Quality|Unrated}}
{{av}}

After [[world generation]], game worlds continue to develop and advance while time passes in-game, simulating off-screen various activities in the world outside of the player's influence and without their direct input, referred to as "world activation".

World activation happens when you start a new [[Fortress mode|fortress]] or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode game, during the two weeks that pass in the [[calendar]] when you begin. Otherwise, it happens as [[time]] passes as you play at normal fortress/adventurer speed. You can play many games of [[Fortress mode|fortress]] and/or [[Adventure mode|adventure]] mode in the same world, each building up its history.

==Types of activities==
Types of activities that are simulated during world activation:

===Succession===
[[Historical figure]]s can get married, have children, do their various jobs, and die. All of their children can do the same, as they are also historical figures.

The various positions of [[nobles]] will either be inherited by another historical figure, or assigned to a new historical figure by the parent civilization when the position is [[Fun|vacated]] or they have an [[unfortunate accident]].
Conflicts over succession and illegitimate site ownership can emerge, and armed usurpations and insurrections can take place.

===Site changes===
[[Image:Legends_artifact_symbol_v50.07_01.png|800px|thumb|A legendary sword being made a symbol during world generation]]
Existing NPC [[site]]s are conquered, liberated, defended, destroyed, reclaimed and new sites are created[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf//index.php?topic=140544.msg6843526#msg6843526] while playing. Bandits will loot villages, armies will conquer cities, and forgotten beasts will ransack fortresses. Abandoned dwarven fortresses can be reclaimed later by the player.

As the player can do in [[fortress mode]], during [[world generation]] and [[world activities]]), certain [[item]]s can also be chosen as the symbol of an [[army|group]]'s administrative position. These items were either, upon construction, an artifact, or were later - but prior to becoming a symbol - made an artifact by naming the item (ie. to sanctify someone; the item having been that someone's favorite possession).

===Movement===
Consequently, all kinds of creatures and groups travel around on the world map. However, others teleport. No, really.

The following groups teleport:

* [[Caravan]]s
* [[Diplomat]]s
* [[Migrant]]s
* [[Megabeast|The]] [[Semi-megabeast|various]] [[Forgotten beast|beasts]]

The rest physically travel on the map, including:

* [[Bandit]]s
* [[Refugee]]s
* [[Scholar]]s
* [[Thief|Thieves]]
* [[Quester]]s
* [[Religion|Religious]] professions such as [[prophet]]s, [[monk]]s or [[pilgrim]]s
* [[Army|Armies]] like siegers or other invaders

[[File:Df goblins distracted by elves.png|thumb|Screenshot showing Goblin civs prioritizing conquering the Elves down south above attacking the player fort (here highlighted with a yellow 'A' due to the rumour of artifacts.) ASCII mode.]]

[[Army|Armies]] move around the map while playing for various reasons, including site invasion (not just to the player site), harassment, searching for work, reclamation of sites and more. As invaders need to actually travel the world map to get to your site, embarking close to a site of potential invaders increases the chances of an invasion. Other factors that influence the probability of an invasion are the "effective" population of said site{{verify}}, in other words, how many soldiers the site can spare to attack you. While a site may have a high population, it may be occupied with other, more important campaigns than the player's site.

The asterisks {{DFtext|*}} on the fast [[travel map]] in adventure mode are creatures and armies moving around on the world map.

===Non-player adventurers===
[[Quester|Non-player adventurers]] will group up in parties and wander around, or adventure alone. They will also go on [[quest]]s to retrieve [[artifact]]s in play, which they receive from [[historical figure]]s that are in power, for example, a lord or noble from another site. For fortress mode, this manifests as [[visitor]]s coming to your fort and requesting you hand over artifacts. If you say no to them, they may try to steal it from you, or outright attack your fort.

In adventurer mode, this is more subtle: non-player adventurers can be found who are looking for artifacts, and may compete with you when you are trying to get artifacts, if they happen to be looking for the same artifact. If you are holding the artifact they seek (even if you are hiding it in your backpack), they will try to mug you (like [[bandit]]s) and may also attack you, follow you around, or vocally demand that you give them the artifact.

==Information==
{{DFtext|Greetings from the mountainhomes. Let's discuss our situation.|7:1}}

In an active fortress session, the player will get information about current events through the [[liaison]]. During the [[meeting]], communication of this information is implied. The actual information will appear on the [[Civilization and World Info]] screen, under the "News and rumors" tab.

== Notes ==
* In older versions, any world activity stopped after [[world generation]] finished. This is no longer the case since v0.40.01 and the changing of this is what is usually referred to as "world activation". "Restarting" [[world generation]] is not planned.

* Currently when new sites are founded during fortress mode by other civilizations, ie. forest retreats, hamlets/towns, dark pits or hillocks, then the civ_id (and cur_owner_id) is not set properly (for the created site), which can potentially lead to problems. Also the cur_owner_id of a site is usually not updated, if another civilization takes over a site in fortress mode. Furthermore, in such cases, the flag "dead" (in the property "flags" of the entity) of the previous site government is not set to true. In such cases it can also happen, that a historical figure, who is created on-the-fly, to be the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR is not associated with any entity (eg. not belonging to any group) at all (despite being the forced administrator of the new government) and the historical figure can - in that case - ie. lack skills (info.skills is nil for that particular historical figure). In case of a destroyed site getting reclaimed by any civilization then the cur_owner_id will still be set to -1 after successfully reclaiming a site (as destroying a site does set the cur_owner_id to -1). Furthermore in case of new founded sites no entity-site link to the civilization might get created (and vice-versa, eg. the site does not get an entry under entity_links pointing to the new civ and the civ does not get an entry in site_links to the site). None of the above (except a forced administrator not associated with any group) can be seen without using tools like dfhack (ie. as legends and the game usually do not display these things, only the possible side-effects can be experienced in-game).

{{World}}
{{Category|World}}
{{Category|Legends mode}}

Position token

2026-04-03T14:13:03Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
{{Modding}}
Position tokens define [[noble]] positions for civilizations and site governments, inside [[entity token]]s. In the vanilla game, position token definitions can be found in <code>[[Game folder|<Dwarf Fortress>]]\data\vanilla\vanilla_entities\objects\entity_default.txt</code>.

__TOC__
{{clear}}

==Code==
A position is defined with a position 'code', as an argument in the [POSITION]-tag. The same code may be used multiple times, they don't have to be unique. This code is used as reference by APPOINTED_BY, SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION, REPLACE_BY and COMMANDER. 'MONARCH' is an example of this code.

==Position tokens==
These tokens belong in an entity definition, applying to a position (such as monarch) and should follow the [POSITION:POSITION_NAME] token.

{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Token
! Arguments
! Description

|-
| {{text anchor|ACCOUNT_EXEMPT}}
|
| The position holder is not subjected to the [[Dwarven economy|economy]]. Less than relevant right now.

|-
| {{text anchor|ALLOWED_CLASS}}
| {{token|CREATURE_CLASS|creature}} token
| rowspan=2 | ALLOWED_CLASS: Only creatures with the specified [CREATURE_CLASS] token may be appointed to this position. Multiple entries are allowed. ALLOWED_CREATURE: Restricts the position to the specified creature and caste. Multiple entries are allowed. These tokens only apply within the entity’s own race (including its castes).
In world generation, they limit which units may be assigned to the position, but they do not prevent other creature types from acquiring the position through alternative means (for example, via a coup).
In fortress mode, these tokens are enforced during manual appointment and succession.
During world generation, if all allowed castes have a POP_RATIO of 0, a unit of an allowed caste will still be generated to fill the position.

|-
| {{text anchor|ALLOWED_CREATURE}}
| CREATURE:CASTE

|-
| {{text anchor|APPOINTED_BY}}
| position
| This position can only be chosen for the task from the nobles screen, and is available only if there is an *argument* present. For example, the GENERAL is [APPOINTED_BY:MONARCH]. Contrast [ELECTED]. Being appointed by a MONARCH seems to handle a lot of worldgen stuff, and interferes with fort mode titles. Multiple entries are allowed. If you have neither an ELECTED-token nor a APPOINTED_BY-token, the holder may always be changed (like the expedition leader).
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#Appointment]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|BRAG_ON_KILL}}
|
| A creature that kills a member of this position will be sure to talk/brag about it a lot.

|-
| {{text anchor|CHAT_WORTHY}}
|
| In adventure mode, when referencing locations, an NPC may mention this position holder living there or having done some deed there; it also means that the position exists in world-gen, rather than being created only at the end of world-gen.

|-
| {{text anchor|COLOR}}
| [[Color]]
| Creatures of this position will have this [[color]], instead of their profession color, e.g. [COLOR:5:0:1]. It is also applied to the name of the citizen in the units screen.

|-
| {{text anchor|COMMANDER}}
| position:ALL
| This position will act as a commander of the specified position{{verify}}. E.g. GENERAL is [COMMANDER:LIEUTENANT:ALL]. Unknown if values other than ALL work. Multiple entries are allowed.
''Read more: [[Army]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|CONQUERED_SITE}}
|
| This position is a puppet ruler, left behind at a conquered site.

|-
| {{text anchor|DEMAND_MAX}}
| number (0-100)
| How many demands the position can make of the population at one time.

|-
| {{text anchor|DESCRIPTION}}
| string. Readable up to 470 characters in the nobles' screen.
| description of this position in the nobles screen.

|-
| {{text anchor|DETERMINES_COIN_DESIGN}}
|
| The site's (or civ's) minted [[coin]]s, if any, will have images that reflect the personality of this position holder.

|-
| {{text anchor|DO_NOT_CULL}}
|
| The position won't be culled from Legends as "unimportant" during world generation.

|-
| {{text anchor|DUTY_BOUND}}
|
| Members of this position will never agree to 'join' your character during adventure mode. They also don't settle anywhere else but in the capital, and will not [[immigration|emigrate]] from their site. If they are not DUTY_BOUND, they will live anywhere as they like.

|-
| {{text anchor|ELECTED}}
|
| The population will periodically select the most skill-eligible creature to fill this position for site-level positions at the player's fort. For responsibilities or positions that use more than one skill, no skill takes priority in electing a creature: an accomplished comedian is more qualified for the TRADE responsibility than a skilled appraiser. A creature may be elected to multiple positions at the same time. Contrast [APPOINTED_BY].
''More info: [[Elections]]''
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#Elections]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|EXECUTION_SKILL}}
| weapon skill
| A mandatory sub-tag of [RESPONSIBILITY:EXECUTIONS]. Determines the weapon chosen by the executioner for their work.

|-
| {{text anchor|EXPORTED_IN_LEGENDS}}
|
| The various members who have filled this role will be listed in the civilisation's history.

|-
| {{text anchor|FLASHES}}
|
| The creature holding this position will visibly flash, like legendary citizens. Represents a properly noble station by default.

|-
| {{text anchor|GENDER}}
| male/female
| The position can only be held by the specified gender. Currently bugged {{bug|2714}}

|-
| {{text anchor|KILL_QUEST}}
|
| The position can assign quests to adventurers.

|-
| {{text anchor|LAND_HOLDER}}
| importance tier (1-10)
| This is an alternative to SITE, allowing positions to be created at civ-level 'as needed' for all sites that meet the requirements to have them, which are the values set in [[Difficulty#Land_holder|land holder difficulty]] [[settings]]. The character is tied permanently to a particular site, but also operates at the civ-level.
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#land holders]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|LAND_NAME}}
| string. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen.
| The name the area takes on when under the control of a LAND_HOLDER. E.g. for the DUKE, [LAND_NAME:a duchy]. If the position is not a [[LAND_HOLDER]], the land_name is still displayed left of the position in the nobles menu.

|-
| {{text anchor|MANDATE_MAX}}
| number (0-100)
| The maximum number of mandates the position can make at once.

|-
| {{text anchor|MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION}}
|
| The position holder cannot be assigned labors. It only works for [SITE]-positions.

|-
| {{text anchor|MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION_SPOUSE}}
|
| The spouse of the position holder doesn't have to work, either - see above.
|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_SCREEN_ONLY}}
|
| This position cannot be appointed from the nobles screen. Intended for militia captains and other squad leaders to reduce clutter. Currently nonfunctional{{bug|8965}}

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| The name of the position.

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME_MALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| If the creature holding the position is male, this is the position's name. E.g. for MONARCH, [NAME_MALE:king:kings]

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME_FEMALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| If the creature holding the position is female, this is the position's name. E.g. for MONARCH, [NAME_FEMALE:queen:queens]

|-
| {{text anchor|NUMBER}}
|
* number/AS_NEEDED
| How many of the position there should be. If the [SITE] token exists, this is per site, otherwise this is per civilisation. AS_NEEDED applies mainly to positions involved with the military command chain; this is used to allow armies to expand to whatever size they need to be. Other non-military positions like the land_holders or the [[messenger]] with NUMBER:AS_NEEDED will also be appointed.
The problem with [[Lieutenant]]s and [[Captain]]s not being created, is their AS_NEEDED number. They are only then created when they're needed, and that has some pretty unusual conditions. When a fixed number is used, they are appointed with the creation of the civ.
If the NUMBER is set at a fixed value higher than 1, the position is always filled up full. If the position is available on embark, it is completely filled up with only the first dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|PRECEDENCE}}
| number (0-30000)/NONE
| How important the position is in society; a lower number is more important and displayed higher in the Nobles menu. For MONARCH it's 1, for MILITIA_CAPTAIN it's 200.

The game marks the first non-[SITE] position with [PRECEDENCE:1] as the ruler, for both embark screen and mountainhome purposes. When it is empty, [REPLACED_BY] another position, or not yet created because of [REQUIRES_POPULATION], the screen just says 'None' as the holders' name.

Landholders can become the ruler, if they are the first defined position with precedence of 1. civ-position can also be created without precedence. Positions may have the same precedence and will be appointed, although the effect is unknown. Precedence has no effect on who's doing the job, if both positions have the same responsibilities.

|-
| {{text anchor|PUNISHMENT_EXEMPTION}}
|
| The position holder will not be held accountable for his or her crimes. Currently nonfunctional.{{bug|4589}}{{verify|seems to prevent punishment when they are convicted of actual crime}}

|-
| {{text anchor|QUEST_GIVER}}
|
| The position holder can give quests in Adventure mode. Functionality in 0.31.13 and later is uncertain.

|-
| {{text anchor|REJECTED_CLASS}}
| CREATURE_CLASS Token
| Creatures of the specified class cannot be appointed to this position. Multiple entries are allowed

|-
| {{text anchor|REJECTED_CREATURE}}
| CREATURE:CASTE
| Restricts position holders by CREATURE type. Multiple entries are allowed. It doesn't seem to work in world-gen. When checking Legends mode, units are seen assigned this position regardless of their creature-type or caste. It does work in Fortress mode.

|-
| {{text anchor|REPLACED_BY}}
| position
| This position is absorbed by another down the line. For example, expedition leader is [REPLACED_BY:MAYOR]. Only a single entry is allowed.

It can work with both [REQUIRES_POPULATION] and [REQUIRES_MARKET].

The tag differs in function for landholders, see [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics]]

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_BEDROOM}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a bedroom with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_BOXES}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many boxes.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_CABINETS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many cabinets.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_DINING}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a dining room with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_OFFICE}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires an office with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_RACKS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many weapon racks.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_STANDS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many armour stands.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_TOMB}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a tomb with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRES_MARKET}}
|
| Does not have anything directly to do with [[trade depot|trade depots]]. It means that in minor sites (such as hillocks) the position will not appear, while in major sites (such as dwarf fortresses) it will. Depending on its economical position in the region, a [[hamlet]] may build a market and develop into a [[Town]] eventually. That is when this position becomes available. It only works in combination with the [SITE]-token.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRES_POPULATION}}
| number
| The position requires the population to be at least this number before it becomes available, or before the position holder will move in.

|-
| {{text anchor|RESPONSIBILITY}}
| responsibility
| The position holder does something - see the Responsibilities table below for suitable arguments. A position does not need to have a responsibility.

|-
| {{text anchor|RULES_FROM_LOCATION}}
|
| If there is a special location set aside for rulers, such as a human castle/mead hall, the position holder will always be found at that particular location. Does nothing for dwarven nobles, because at present, dwarves have no such special locations.

|-
| {{text anchor|SITE}}
|
| Every site government will have the defined number of this position instead of the whole civilization; provided that other criteria (if any) are met. Unless LAND_HOLDER is present instead, the defined number of the position will be created only for the civilization as a whole.

|-
| {{text anchor|SLEEP_PRETENSION}}
|
| The position holder will get upset if someone with a higher PRECEDENCE holds quarters with a greater value than their own.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPECIAL_BURIAL}}
|
| The civilization will inter the corpse of the position holder in a special grave, either in catacombs or in monuments. If that grave is disturbed, the position holder can return as a [[mummy]]. {{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| The name of the position holder's spouse.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE_FEMALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| If the spouse of the creature holding the position is female, this is the spouse's position name.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE_MALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| If the spouse of the creature holding the position is male, this is the spouse's position name.

|-
| {{text anchor|SQUAD}}
| number:singular:plural
| The position holder is authorized to form a military squad, led by themselves using the [[leader]] and [[military tactics]] skills. The number denotes the maximum headcount. The noun used to describe the subordinates (e.g. royal guard) is used in adventure mode for the adventurer. This token is used together with [RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_ENFORCEMENT] for giving [[quest]]s to adventurers as [[Hearthperson|hearthpeople]]. Further details: [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Military]]

|-
| {{text anchor|SUCCESSION}}
|
* BY_HEIR / BY_POSITION:position
| How a new position holder is chosen. A single position can have multiple BY_POSITION tokens. See [[Noble]] for more information on how succession is handled in the game.
The SUCCESSION-Tag is also considered when a new positions opens up, for example when a required population number is reached. If a valid successor is available, they will be the one taking that position initially, without appointment or election.

|}

== Responsibilities ==
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Argument
! Description

|-
| {{text anchor|ACCOUNTING}}
| Found on [[bookkeeper]]. The position will use the [[record keeper]] skill to keep track of stocks.

|-
| {{text anchor|ADVISE_LEADERS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|ATTACK_ENEMIES}}
| Found on elven [[ranger captain]] and human warrior. Effect unknown.{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|BUILD_MORALE}}
| Found on [[champion]]. Citizens get a special thought for "talking to a pillar of society" when speaking to this noble.

|-
| {{text anchor|BUILDING_SAFETY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|COLLECT_TAXES}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the tax collector.

|-
| {{text anchor|CONSTRUCTION_PERMITS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|DELIVER_MESSAGES}}
| Found on [[messenger]]. The position travels to other sites and uses [[social skill]]s.
|

|-
| {{text anchor|EQUIPMENT_MANIFESTS}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|ESCORT_TAX_COLLECTOR}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the Royal Guards (squad members beneath the Hammerer).

|-
| {{text anchor|ESPIONAGE}}
| Found on [[dungeon master]] and the [[Elf|elven]] [[General|princess]] and uses the [[schemer]] skill.

|-
| {{text anchor|ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on [[outpost liaison]]. Position travels with the caravan and uses [[social skill]]s to make trade agreements with any settlements that it visits, provided they are domestic, report the news and promote {{token|LAND_HOLDER|e}} positions. Also reports recent news. Presumably has no effect at site level. Crucially, it does not visit foreign settlements, but the civ-level TRADE position does the exact same thing in its position. They arrive the same time as the caravan arrives, and this can thus be modded by setting {{token|ACTIVE_SEASON|e}}

|-
| {{text anchor|EXECUTIONS}}
| Found on [[hammerer]]. Position executes death penalty judgements with a weapon of the appropriate skill. Cannot be combined with LAW_ENFORCEMENT, resulting in the "Invalid Officer"-error.

|-
| {{text anchor|FIRE_SAFETY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|FOOD_SUPPLY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|HEALTH_MANAGEMENT}}
| Found on [[chief medical dwarf]]. Position will use [[diagnostician]] skill to evaluate [[wounds]] and schedule [[Health care|treatment]], reported in each citizen's Health tab.

|-
| {{text anchor|JUDGE}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|LAW_ENFORCEMENT}}
| Found on [[sheriff]]/[[captain of the guard]]. Position and its subordinates are in charge of punishing criminals. A {{token|SITE|position}} position holding this responsibility plus the {{token|SQUAD|position}} token (or allowing the entity to have a {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}} with this responsibility) is required for an adventurer from a given civilization to start as a [[hearthperson]], [[Captain of the guard|fortress guard]], etc. Cannot be combined with EXECUTIONS, resulting in the "Invalid Officer"-error.

|-
| {{text anchor|LAW_MAKING}}
| Found on [[monarch]]s and [[:Category:Aristocrats|nobles]]. Will be referred to as the leader of the site in adventure mode and they may designate the site as being the capital city for civ-level positions. This position is in charge of creating procedural positions, corresponding to either {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}} or {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}}. Position-holders that have attained [[immortality]] may issue oppressive edicts to protect themselves against suspicion.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_BRIDGES}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_ROADS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_SEWERS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_TUNNELS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS}}
| Position will make a 'social call' to an established foreign settlement, complimenting or insulting them depending on relations and reporting the news.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on diplomat. Position negotiates peace treaties in order to end wars.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on [[diplomat]]. Position negotiates special agreements, such as tree cutting quotas. Used when elevating a settlement in the {{token|LAND_HOLDER|position}} chain up from level 1.

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_ANIMALS}}
| Found on [[dungeon master]].

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_CLEANLINESS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_DRINKS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_FOOD}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_PRODUCTION}}
| Found on [[manager]]. Position enables the use of workshop profiles and uses the [[organizer]] skill to process work orders entered in the job manager after the fortress population reaches 20.

|-
| {{text anchor|MEET_WORKERS}}
| Found on [[expedition leader]]/[[mayor]]. Position uses the various [[social skill]]s to hold meetings with unhappy citizens and try to pacify them with happy thoughts. In adventure mode, [SITE] positions with this responsibility handle petitions to make the player a performer for the local government.

|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_GOALS}}
| Found on [[monarch]]/[[:Category:Aristocrats|landholder]]/[[:Category:Elected Nobles|leaders]]. Character is in charge of going to war and making peace for the government they work for. Without a position with this responsibility at civ level the civilization will not be able to make peace and its sites will wage war on each other constantly, and as a result, all viable civilizations must have one leader with this tag at civ level. This appears not to be a problem for [[kobold]]s, presumably due to the {{token|SKULKING|e}}. If no position has this responsibility in fortress mode, players are unable to start [[missions]].

|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_STRATEGY}}
| Found on [[general]]/[[militia commander]]. Means that they will command the armies of their site or civilization. Issues the orders for the teams conducting raids or other operations away from the fortress. During worldgen, positions (of a civilization) will go on expeditions to tame exotic creatures (but this only yields a pet, not any training knowledge, and only of a race for which the civilization has already some training knowledge). Counterintuitively not by the TAME_EXOTICS-position. The destinations of these expeditions are determined by the entities USE_(...)_ANIMALS-tokens.

|-
| {{text anchor|OVERSEE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|PATROL_TERRITORY}}
| Found on elven ranger captain. Effect unknown.{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|PREPARE_LEADER_MEALS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS}}
| Found on [[monarch]]/[[:Category:Aristocrats|landholder]]/[[:Category:Elected Nobles|leaders]]. Position uses the various social skills to hold meetings with incoming diplomats and liaisons.

|-
| {{text anchor|RELIGION}}
| Found on elven [[druid]] and uses [[social skill]]s. Position informs you about worship cults{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|SORT_AMMUNITION}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|TAME_EXOTICS}}
| Position will tame animals with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token. Currently unused - was originally assigned to the dungeon master. Expeditions to tame exotic creatures will be done by the MILITARY_STRATEGY-position

|-
| {{text anchor|TRADE}}
| Found on [[broker]]. Position will use Appraisal skill to display value estimates and the various Social skills to trade at the depot. When applied to other civilizations, this position will arrive with the caravan to make trade agreements (like the Human Guild Representative from older versions) and behaves otherwise like the civ's own ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS position holder. They arrive the same time as the caravan arrive and this can thus be modded by setting {{token|ACTIVE_SEASON|e}}

|-
| {{text anchor|UPGRADE_SQUAD_EQUIPMENT}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|}

== Related tokens ==
The following two entity tokens are not actually position tokens, but bear mentioning on this page because they can modify the way that a civilization's positions behave:

{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Token
! Arguments
! Description

|-
| {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}
| Position responsibility or ALL
| Allows a responsibility to be taken up by a dynamically generated position (such as Law-maker).

|-
| {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}
| Position responsibility or ALL
| Allows a responsibility to be taken up by a dynamically generated position (such as Law-maker).
|}

== Why won't my positions appear? ==
The way DF determines what positions will actually ''appear'' in your fortress is somewhat counter-intuitive and fairly limiting. This guide should help you understand what you can do to actually get your positions working properly.

There are five tokens governing which positions appear in your fortress - LAND_HOLDER, REQUIRES_POPULATION, APPOINTED_BY, ELECTED, and REPLACED_BY. The first two determine when your fortress is eligible for a new position, the next two determine how a new position for which your fortress is eligible can be added, and the fifth allows you to clear up obsolete positions. Unfortunately, they also interact in some strange ways that makes creating interesting position structures difficult.

When you start a new fortress, DF compiles a list of your initial positions. To do this, it looks at the requirements for each position - any position whose only requirement is less than seven dwarves (either because they have no requirement tokens, or because their only requirement tokens are [REQUIRES_POPULATION: =< 7] or [LAND_HOLDER:some trigger whose only requirement is some number of dwarves equal to or less than 7]). Most importantly, ''any'' position whose only requirement is a LAND_HOLDER requirement, regardless of what the trigger for that requirement is, will be added if another eligible starting position is REPLACED_BY it. '''A non-LAND_HOLDER position that is REPLACED_BY a LAND_HOLDER position will never appear.''' With this list compiled, the game culls all positions that are REPLACED_BY another eligible position, and then culls all positions that have the APPOINTED_BY token. '''You may not embark with any appointed positions.''' Any remaining positions are then filled by a dwarf chosen at random.

'''Positions do not automatically appear when you reach their requirements.''' For example, if you remove the ELECTED token from the Mayor, then the Mayor will never appear, even once you reach their required number of dwarves. '''For a position that does not appear at embark to appear in your fortress, it must be APPOINTED_BY another position or ELECTED.'''

Naturally, this is more complicated than it looks. '''APPOINTED_BY positions must be appointed by another position already in your fortress, or a civ-level position. Only LAND_HOLDER positions may be appointed by civ-level positions.''' LAND_HOLDER positions that are APPOINTED_BY civ-level positions are inherently tied to civ-level tokens with the ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS responsibility. If a fortress meets the LAND_HOLDER_TRIGGER for a new LAND_HOLDER tier when a caravan leaves, then the next time the outpost liaison or equivalent arrives, they will offer to make you an official colony, which will allow you to select all positions for that LAND_HOLDER level. '''Each time they appear, the outpost liaison will only promote your fortress one tier up the LAND_HOLDER track.''' The biggest problem with this system is that you may set your LAND_HOLDER_TRIGGERS such that you are eligible for the first tier of LAND_HOLDER positions at embark. '''If you are eligible for the first tier of LAND_HOLDER positions at embark, then all first-tier positions will appear twice - once at embark, and again when the outpost liaison comes to appoint you to the first tier.'''

If civ-positions are neither APPOINTED_BY nor ELECTED, they still will be filled.

Read more: [[Advanced Entity Position Mechanics]]

{{Category|Modding}}
{{Category|Tokens}}
[[ru:Position token]]

Position token

2026-04-03T14:07:53Z

Silverwing235: /* Position tokens */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{av}}
{{Modding}}
Position tokens define [[noble]] positions for civilizations and site governments, inside [[entity token]]s. In the vanilla game, position token definitions can be found in <code>[[Game folder|<Dwarf Fortress>]]\data\vanilla\vanilla_entities\objects\entity_default.txt</code>.

__TOC__
{{clear}}

==Code==
A position is defined with a position 'code', as an argument in the [POSITION]-tag. The same code may be used multiple times, they don't have to be unique. This code is used as reference by APPOINTED_BY, SUCCESSION:BY_POSITION, REPLACE_BY and COMMANDER. 'MONARCH' is an example of this code.

==Position tokens==
These tokens belong in an entity definition, applying to a position (such as monarch) and should follow the [POSITION:POSITION_NAME] token.

{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Token
! Arguments
! Description

|-
| {{text anchor|ACCOUNT_EXEMPT}}
|
| The position holder is not subjected to the [[Dwarven economy|economy]]. Less than relevant right now.

|-
| {{text anchor|ALLOWED_CLASS}}
| {{token|CREATURE_CLASS|creature}} token
| rowspan=2 | ALLOWED_CLASS: Only creatures with the specified [CREATURE_CLASS] token may be appointed to this position. Multiple entries are allowed. ALLOWED_CREATURE: Restricts the position to the specified creature and caste. Multiple entries are allowed. These tokens only apply within the entity’s own race (including its castes).
In world generation, they limit which units may be assigned to the position, but they do not prevent other creature types from acquiring the position through alternative means (for example, via a coup).
In fortress mode, these tokens are enforced during manual appointment and succession.
During world generation, if all allowed castes have a POP_RATIO of 0, a unit of an allowed caste will still be generated to fill the position.

|-
| {{text anchor|ALLOWED_CREATURE}}
| CREATURE:CASTE

|-
| {{text anchor|APPOINTED_BY}}
| position
| This position can only be chosen for the task from the nobles screen, and is available only if there is an *argument* present. For example, the GENERAL is [APPOINTED_BY:MONARCH]. Contrast [ELECTED]. Being appointed by a MONARCH seems to handle a lot of worldgen stuff, and interferes with fort mode titles. Multiple entries are allowed. If you have neither an ELECTED-token nor a APPOINTED_BY-token, the holder may always be changed (like the expedition leader).
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#Appointment]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|BRAG_ON_KILL}}
|
| A creature that kills a member of this position will be sure to talk/brag about it a lot.

|-
| {{text anchor|CHAT_WORTHY}}
|
| In adventure mode, when referencing locations, an NPC may mention this position holder living there or having done some deed there; it also means that the position exists in world-gen, rather than being created only at the end of world-gen.

|-
| {{text anchor|COLOR}}
| [[Color]]
| Creatures of this position will have this [[color]], instead of their profession color, e.g. [COLOR:5:0:1]. It is also applied to the name of the citizen in the units screen.

|-
| {{text anchor|COMMANDER}}
| position:ALL
| This position will act as a commander of the specified position{{verify}}. E.g. GENERAL is [COMMANDER:LIEUTENANT:ALL]. Unknown if values other than ALL work. Multiple entries are allowed.
''Read more: [[Army]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|CONQUERED_SITE}}
|
| This position is a puppet ruler, left behind at a conquered site.

|-
| {{text anchor|DEMAND_MAX}}
| number (0-100)
| How many demands the position can make of the population at one time.

|-
| {{text anchor|DESCRIPTION}}
| string. Readable up to 470 characters in the nobles' screen.
| description of this position in the nobles screen.

|-
| {{text anchor|DETERMINES_COIN_DESIGN}}
|
| The site's (or civ's) minted [[coin]]s, if any, will have images that reflect the personality of this position holder.

|-
| {{text anchor|DO_NOT_CULL}}
|
| The position won't be culled from Legends as "unimportant" during world generation.

|-
| {{text anchor|DUTY_BOUND}}
|
| Members of this position will never agree to 'join' your character during adventure mode. They also don't settle anywhere else but in the capital, and will not [[immigration|emigrate]] from their site. If they are not DUTY_BOUND, they will live anywhere as they like.

|-
| {{text anchor|ELECTED}}
|
| The population will periodically select the most skill-eligible creature to fill this position for site-level positions at the player's fort. For responsibilities or positions that use more than one skill, no skill takes priority in electing a creature: an accomplished comedian is more qualified for the TRADE responsibility than a skilled appraiser. A creature may be elected to multiple positions at the same time. Contrast [APPOINTED_BY].
''More info: [[Elections]]''
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#Elections]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|EXECUTION_SKILL}}
| weapon skill
| A mandatory sub-tag of [RESPONSIBILITY:EXECUTIONS]. Determines the weapon chosen by the executioner for their work.

|-
| {{text anchor|EXPORTED_IN_LEGENDS}}
|
| The various members who have filled this role will be listed in the civilisation's history.

|-
| {{text anchor|FLASHES}}
|
| The creature holding this position will visibly flash, like legendary citizens. Represents a properly noble station by default.

|-
| {{text anchor|GENDER}}
| male/female
| The position can only be held by the specified gender. Currently bugged {{bug|2714}}

|-
| {{text anchor|KILL_QUEST}}
|
| The position can assign quests to adventurers.

|-
| {{text anchor|LAND_HOLDER}}
| importance tier (1-10)
| This is an alternative to SITE, allowing positions to be created at civ-level 'as needed' for all sites that meet the requirements to have them, which are the values set in [[Difficulty#Land_holder|land holder difficulty]] [[settings]]. The character is tied permanently to a particular site, but also operates at the civ-level.
''Read more: [[Advanced_Entity_Position_Mechanics#land holders]]''

|-
| {{text anchor|LAND_NAME}}
| string. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen.
| The name the area takes on when under the control of a LAND_HOLDER. E.g. for the DUKE, [LAND_NAME:a duchy]. If the position is not a [[LAND_HOLDER]], the land_name is still displayed left of the position in the nobles menu.

|-
| {{text anchor|MANDATE_MAX}}
| number (0-100)
| The maximum number of mandates the position can make at once.

|-
| {{text anchor|MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION}}
|
| The position holder cannot be assigned labors. It only works for [SITE]-positions.

|-
| {{text anchor|MENIAL_WORK_EXEMPTION_SPOUSE}}
|
| The spouse of the position holder doesn't have to work, either - see above.
|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_SCREEN_ONLY}}
|
| This position cannot be appointed from the nobles screen. Intended for militia captains and other squad leaders to reduce clutter. Currently nonfunctional{{bug|8965}}

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| The name of the position.

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME_MALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| If the creature holding the position is male, this is the position's name. E.g. for MONARCH, [NAME_MALE:king:kings]

|-
| {{text anchor|NAME_FEMALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 21 characters in the nobles' screen and up to 30 in the unit list.
| If the creature holding the position is female, this is the position's name. E.g. for MONARCH, [NAME_FEMALE:queen:queens]

|-
| {{text anchor|NUMBER}}
|
* number/AS_NEEDED
| How many of the position there should be. If the [SITE] token exists, this is per site, otherwise this is per civilisation. AS_NEEDED applies mainly to positions involved with the military command chain; this is used to allow armies to expand to whatever size they need to be. Other non-military positions like the land_holders or the [[messenger]] with NUMBER:AS_NEEDED will also be appointed.
The problem with [[Lieutenant]]s and [[Captain]]s not being created, is their AS_NEEDED number. They are only then created when they're needed, and that has some pretty unusual conditions. When a fixed number is used, they are appointed with the creation of the civ.
If the NUMBER is set at a fixed value higher than 1, the position is always filled up full. If the position is available on embark, it is completely filled up with only the first dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|PRECEDENCE}}
| number (0-30000)/NONE
| How important the position is in society; a lower number is more important and displayed higher in the Nobles menu. For MONARCH it's 1, for MILITIA_CAPTAIN it's 200.

The game marks the first non-[SITE] position with [PRECEDENCE:1] as the ruler, for both embark screen and mountainhome purposes. When it is empty, [REPLACED_BY] another position, or not yet created because of [REQUIRES_POPULATION], the screen just says 'None' as the holders' name.

Landholders can become the ruler, if they are the first defined position with precedence of 1. civ-position can also be created without precedence. Positions may have the same precedence and will be appointed, although the effect is unknown. Precedence has no effect on who's doing the job, if both positions have the same responsibilities.

|-
| {{text anchor|PUNISHMENT_EXEMPTION}}
|
| The position holder will not be held accountable for his or her crimes. Currently nonfunctional.{{bug|4589}}{{verify|seems to prevent punishment when they are convicted of actual crime}}

|-
| {{text anchor|QUEST_GIVER}}
|
| The position holder can give quests in Adventure mode. Functionality in 0.31.13 and later is uncertain.

|-
| {{text anchor|REJECTED_CLASS}}
| CREATURE_CLASS Token
| Creatures of the specified class cannot be appointed to this position. Multiple entries are allowed

|-
| {{text anchor|REJECTED_CREATURE}}
| CREATURE:CASTE
| Restricts position holders by CREATURE type. Multiple entries are allowed. It doesn't seem to work in world-gen. When checking Legends mode, units are seen assigned this position regardless of their creature-type or caste. It does work in Fortress mode.

|-
| {{text anchor|REPLACED_BY}}
| position
| This position is absorbed by another down the line. For example, expedition leader is [REPLACED_BY:MAYOR]. Only a single entry is allowed.

It can work with both [REQUIRES_POPULATION] and [REQUIRES_MARKET].

The tag differs in function for landholders, see [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics]]

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_BEDROOM}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a bedroom with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_BOXES}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many boxes.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_CABINETS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many cabinets.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_DINING}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a dining room with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_OFFICE}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires an office with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_RACKS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many weapon racks.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_STANDS}}
| number (0-100)
| The position holder requires at least this many armour stands.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRED_TOMB}}
| number (0-1000000)
| The position holder requires a tomb with at least this value.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRES_MARKET}}
|
| Does not have anything directly to do with [[trade depot|trade depots]]. It means that in minor sites (such as hillocks) the position will not appear, while in major sites (such as dwarf fortresses) it will. Depending on its economical position in the region, a [[hamlet]] may build a market and develop into a [[Town]] eventually. That is when this position becomes available. It only works in combination with the [SITE]-token.

|-
| {{text anchor|REQUIRES_POPULATION}}
| number
| The position requires the population to be at least this number before it becomes available, or before the position holder will move in.

|-
| {{text anchor|RESPONSIBILITY}}
| responsibility
| The position holder does a thing. See the table below for suitable arguments. A position does not need to have a responsibility.

|-
| {{text anchor|RULES_FROM_LOCATION}}
|
| If there is a special location set aside for rulers, such as a human castle/mead hall, the position holder will always be found at that particular location. Does nothing for dwarven nobles, because at present, dwarves have no such special locations.

|-
| {{text anchor|SITE}}
|
| Every site government will have the defined number of this position instead of the whole civilization; provided that other criteria (if any) are met. Unless LAND_HOLDER is present instead, the defined number of the position will be created only for the civilization as a whole.

|-
| {{text anchor|SLEEP_PRETENSION}}
|
| The position holder will get upset if someone with a higher PRECEDENCE holds quarters with a greater value than their own.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPECIAL_BURIAL}}
|
| The civilization will inter the corpse of the position holder in a special grave, either in catacombs or in monuments. If that grave is disturbed, the position holder can return as a [[mummy]]. {{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| The name of the position holder's spouse.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE_FEMALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| If the spouse of the creature holding the position is female, this is the spouse's position name.

|-
| {{text anchor|SPOUSE_MALE}}
| singular:plural. Readable up to 30 characters in the unit list.
| If the spouse of the creature holding the position is male, this is the spouse's position name.

|-
| {{text anchor|SQUAD}}
| number:singular:plural
| The position holder is authorized to form a military squad, led by themselves using the [[leader]] and [[military tactics]] skills. The number denotes the maximum headcount. The noun used to describe the subordinates (e.g. royal guard) is used in adventure mode for the adventurer. This token is used together with [RESPONSIBILITY:LAW_ENFORCEMENT] for giving [[quest]]s to adventurers as [[Hearthperson|hearthpeople]]. Further details: [[Advanced_entity_position_mechanics#Military]]

|-
| {{text anchor|SUCCESSION}}
|
* BY_HEIR / BY_POSITION:position
| How a new position holder is chosen. A single position can have multiple BY_POSITION tokens. See [[Noble]] for more information on how succession is handled in the game.
The SUCCESSION-Tag is also considered when a new positions opens up, for example when a required population number is reached. If a valid successor is available, they will be the one taking that position initially, without appointment or election.

|}

== Responsibilities ==
{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Argument
! Description

|-
| {{text anchor|ACCOUNTING}}
| Found on [[bookkeeper]]. The position will use the [[record keeper]] skill to keep track of stocks.

|-
| {{text anchor|ADVISE_LEADERS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|ATTACK_ENEMIES}}
| Found on elven [[ranger captain]] and human warrior. Effect unknown.{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|BUILD_MORALE}}
| Found on [[champion]]. Citizens get a special thought for "talking to a pillar of society" when speaking to this noble.

|-
| {{text anchor|BUILDING_SAFETY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|COLLECT_TAXES}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the tax collector.

|-
| {{text anchor|CONSTRUCTION_PERMITS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|DELIVER_MESSAGES}}
| Found on [[messenger]]. The position travels to other sites and uses [[social skill]]s.
|

|-
| {{text anchor|EQUIPMENT_MANIFESTS}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|ESCORT_TAX_COLLECTOR}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the Royal Guards (squad members beneath the Hammerer).

|-
| {{text anchor|ESPIONAGE}}
| Found on [[dungeon master]] and the [[Elf|elven]] [[General|princess]] and uses the [[schemer]] skill.

|-
| {{text anchor|ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on [[outpost liaison]]. Position travels with the caravan and uses [[social skill]]s to make trade agreements with any settlements that it visits, provided they are domestic, report the news and promote {{token|LAND_HOLDER|e}} positions. Also reports recent news. Presumably has no effect at site level. Crucially, it does not visit foreign settlements, but the civ-level TRADE position does the exact same thing in its position. They arrive the same time as the caravan arrives, and this can thus be modded by setting {{token|ACTIVE_SEASON|e}}

|-
| {{text anchor|EXECUTIONS}}
| Found on [[hammerer]]. Position executes death penalty judgements with a weapon of the appropriate skill. Cannot be combined with LAW_ENFORCEMENT, resulting in the "Invalid Officer"-error.

|-
| {{text anchor|FIRE_SAFETY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|FOOD_SUPPLY}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|HEALTH_MANAGEMENT}}
| Found on [[chief medical dwarf]]. Position will use [[diagnostician]] skill to evaluate [[wounds]] and schedule [[Health care|treatment]], reported in each citizen's Health tab.

|-
| {{text anchor|JUDGE}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|LAW_ENFORCEMENT}}
| Found on [[sheriff]]/[[captain of the guard]]. Position and its subordinates are in charge of punishing criminals. A {{token|SITE|position}} position holding this responsibility plus the {{token|SQUAD|position}} token (or allowing the entity to have a {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}} with this responsibility) is required for an adventurer from a given civilization to start as a [[hearthperson]], [[Captain of the guard|fortress guard]], etc. Cannot be combined with EXECUTIONS, resulting in the "Invalid Officer"-error.

|-
| {{text anchor|LAW_MAKING}}
| Found on [[monarch]]s and [[:Category:Aristocrats|nobles]]. Will be referred to as the leader of the site in adventure mode and they may designate the site as being the capital city for civ-level positions. This position is in charge of creating procedural positions, corresponding to either {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}} or {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|e}}. Position-holders that have attained [[immortality]] may issue oppressive edicts to protect themselves against suspicion.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_BRIDGES}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_ROADS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_SEWERS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAINTAIN_TUNNELS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS}}
| Position will make a 'social call' to an established foreign settlement, complimenting or insulting them depending on relations and reporting the news.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on diplomat. Position negotiates peace treaties in order to end wars.

|-
| {{text anchor|MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS}}
| Found on [[diplomat]]. Position negotiates special agreements, such as tree cutting quotas. Used when elevating a settlement in the {{token|LAND_HOLDER|position}} chain up from level 1.

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_ANIMALS}}
| Found on [[dungeon master]].

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_CLEANLINESS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_DRINKS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD_FOOD}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|MANAGE_PRODUCTION}}
| Found on [[manager]]. Position enables the use of workshop profiles and uses the [[organizer]] skill to process work orders entered in the job manager after the fortress population reaches 20.

|-
| {{text anchor|MEET_WORKERS}}
| Found on [[expedition leader]]/[[mayor]]. Position uses the various [[social skill]]s to hold meetings with unhappy citizens and try to pacify them with happy thoughts. In adventure mode, [SITE] positions with this responsibility handle petitions to make the player a performer for the local government.

|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_GOALS}}
| Found on [[monarch]]/[[:Category:Aristocrats|landholder]]/[[:Category:Elected Nobles|leaders]]. Character is in charge of going to war and making peace for the government they work for. Without a position with this responsibility at civ level the civilization will not be able to make peace and its sites will wage war on each other constantly, and as a result, all viable civilizations must have one leader with this tag at civ level. This appears not to be a problem for [[kobold]]s, presumably due to the {{token|SKULKING|e}}. If no position has this responsibility in fortress mode, players are unable to start [[missions]].

|-
| {{text anchor|MILITARY_STRATEGY}}
| Found on [[general]]/[[militia commander]]. Means that they will command the armies of their site or civilization. Issues the orders for the teams conducting raids or other operations away from the fortress. During worldgen, positions (of a civilization) will go on expeditions to tame exotic creatures (but this only yields a pet, not any training knowledge, and only of a race for which the civilization has already some training knowledge). Counterintuitively not by the TAME_EXOTICS-position. The destinations of these expeditions are determined by the entities USE_(...)_ANIMALS-tokens.

|-
| {{text anchor|OVERSEE_LEADER_HOUSEHOLD}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|PATROL_TERRITORY}}
| Found on elven ranger captain. Effect unknown.{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|PREPARE_LEADER_MEALS}}
|

|-
| {{text anchor|RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS}}
| Found on [[monarch]]/[[:Category:Aristocrats|landholder]]/[[:Category:Elected Nobles|leaders]]. Position uses the various social skills to hold meetings with incoming diplomats and liaisons.

|-
| {{text anchor|RELIGION}}
| Found on elven [[druid]] and uses [[social skill]]s. Position informs you about worship cults{{verify}}

|-
| {{text anchor|SORT_AMMUNITION}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|-
| {{text anchor|TAME_EXOTICS}}
| Position will tame animals with the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token. Currently unused - was originally assigned to the dungeon master. Expeditions to tame exotic creatures will be done by the MILITARY_STRATEGY-position

|-
| {{text anchor|TRADE}}
| Found on [[broker]]. Position will use Appraisal skill to display value estimates and the various Social skills to trade at the depot. When applied to other civilizations, this position will arrive with the caravan to make trade agreements (like the Human Guild Representative from older versions) and behaves otherwise like the civ's own ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS position holder. They arrive the same time as the caravan arrive and this can thus be modded by setting {{token|ACTIVE_SEASON|e}}

|-
| {{text anchor|UPGRADE_SQUAD_EQUIPMENT}}
| Currently unused - was originally assigned to the arsenal dwarf.

|}

== Related tokens ==
The following two entity tokens are not actually position tokens, but bear mentioning on this page because they can modify the way that a civilization's positions behave:

{| {{prettytable}}
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
! Token
! Arguments
! Description

|-
| {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}
| Position responsibility or ALL
| Allows a responsibility to be taken up by a dynamically generated position (such as Law-maker).

|-
| {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}
| Position responsibility or ALL
| Allows a responsibility to be taken up by a dynamically generated position (such as Law-maker).
|}

== Why won't my positions appear? ==
The way DF determines what positions will actually ''appear'' in your fortress is somewhat counter-intuitive and fairly limiting. This guide should help you understand what you can do to actually get your positions working properly.

There are five tokens governing which positions appear in your fortress - LAND_HOLDER, REQUIRES_POPULATION, APPOINTED_BY, ELECTED, and REPLACED_BY. The first two determine when your fortress is eligible for a new position, the next two determine how a new position for which your fortress is eligible can be added, and the fifth allows you to clear up obsolete positions. Unfortunately, they also interact in some strange ways that makes creating interesting position structures difficult.

When you start a new fortress, DF compiles a list of your initial positions. To do this, it looks at the requirements for each position - any position whose only requirement is less than seven dwarves (either because they have no requirement tokens, or because their only requirement tokens are [REQUIRES_POPULATION: =< 7] or [LAND_HOLDER:some trigger whose only requirement is some number of dwarves equal to or less than 7]). Most importantly, ''any'' position whose only requirement is a LAND_HOLDER requirement, regardless of what the trigger for that requirement is, will be added if another eligible starting position is REPLACED_BY it. '''A non-LAND_HOLDER position that is REPLACED_BY a LAND_HOLDER position will never appear.''' With this list compiled, the game culls all positions that are REPLACED_BY another eligible position, and then culls all positions that have the APPOINTED_BY token. '''You may not embark with any appointed positions.''' Any remaining positions are then filled by a dwarf chosen at random.

'''Positions do not automatically appear when you reach their requirements.''' For example, if you remove the ELECTED token from the Mayor, then the Mayor will never appear, even once you reach their required number of dwarves. '''For a position that does not appear at embark to appear in your fortress, it must be APPOINTED_BY another position or ELECTED.'''

Naturally, this is more complicated than it looks. '''APPOINTED_BY positions must be appointed by another position already in your fortress, or a civ-level position. Only LAND_HOLDER positions may be appointed by civ-level positions.''' LAND_HOLDER positions that are APPOINTED_BY civ-level positions are inherently tied to civ-level tokens with the ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS responsibility. If a fortress meets the LAND_HOLDER_TRIGGER for a new LAND_HOLDER tier when a caravan leaves, then the next time the outpost liaison or equivalent arrives, they will offer to make you an official colony, which will allow you to select all positions for that LAND_HOLDER level. '''Each time they appear, the outpost liaison will only promote your fortress one tier up the LAND_HOLDER track.''' The biggest problem with this system is that you may set your LAND_HOLDER_TRIGGERS such that you are eligible for the first tier of LAND_HOLDER positions at embark. '''If you are eligible for the first tier of LAND_HOLDER positions at embark, then all first-tier positions will appear twice - once at embark, and again when the outpost liaison comes to appoint you to the first tier.'''

If civ-positions are neither APPOINTED_BY nor ELECTED, they still will be filled.

Read more: [[Advanced Entity Position Mechanics]]

{{Category|Modding}}
{{Category|Tokens}}
[[ru:Position token]]

Variable positions

2026-03-27T19:29:07Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}
'''Variable positions''' are lesser [[noble|nobility]] titles that can be created by entity leaders after initial world generation.
In vanilla, this is the case for [[human]] and [[goblin]] [[Civilization|civilizations]], but also for merchants' companies, guilds, [[mercenary|mercenary groups]], [[Religion|religious groups]] and [[Criminal|criminal]]s.

== Tokens ==
The tokens that manage the creation of positions are {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}} and {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}.

SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows for the creation of lords, hearthpersons, and [[boss]]es, while VARIABLE_POSITIONS allow the creation of Law-makers.

== General Info ==
Initially, none of the positions marked as variable exist for an entity. The positions will only exist for a given entity, if they are either created during world-gen, world activities(?) or by memory hacking or scripting (ie. with Lua). Ie. in vanilla, all human civilizations have at the beginning of the world-generation no positions at all, neither on the site nor civ-level, as all positions of the vanilla human civs are marked as variable (variable positions: all). When a variable (civ level) position is created, the position is only created for that civilization (entity) and not for any other entities of the same type. Ie. the creation of a law-giver for one human civ does not create law-givers for other human civs. Also presumably all site-level positions for each entity are created on a per site basis, meaning the creation of a site ruler for one site (of a civ) does not also create the site ruler positions for any other site of that civ.

The existence of a variable position does not mean that the position will also be filled by a historical figure, but during world-gen the creation of a position will usually be followed up with the position being filled. Ie. the human historical figure who forced the creation of a law-giver position, will usually become the first law-giver.

For the succession rules of a variable position (after the position has been initially filled by a historical figure), presumably, the same rules as for non-variable positions apply.

(Disclaimer: The following only applies during world-gen and normal world activities. Scripting and memory hacking can circumvent the normal limitations, but with currently unknown results).

For civ level entities, if the law-giving position is a variable position, the law-giving position does not (seem to) have any further requirements to be created (ie. no other position being already created). Ie. this position can be created by force (or popular support etc.) by any historical figure of that civ. But for all other variable (civ-level) positions the law-giving position must exist as usually the historical figure, who is the law-giver, does create the other variable positions (for various reason).

Something similar is probably the case for site level positions. Ie. if the ruler of a site is a variable position, that position needs to be created, before any other site-level variable positions can be created. And the site ruler can afterwards create other variable positions for that site. It is not yet clear if a site level ruling position can be created before a civ level ruling (law-giving) position is created (or exists). This also means that it should be possible, via memory-hacking or scripting, to create (and fill) the variable site level positions (for a player site), at least after the civ level law-giving position has been created (and the law-giving position has been filled), so that a human player site gets the maximum possible human site level positions (with the normal appointment rules for the succession/reappointment of the positions), without having to edit the raw files (as outlined in the human civ page), prior to creating a world, to make the variable positions of human civilizations to "static" ones.

Presumably for guilds (Merchant Guild and others), mercenary groups, religious orders (and criminals) also a "leader" position needs to be created by a historical figure, before other variable positions for that entity can be created.

So far, no restrictions on allowed_class or allowed_creature have been found and also the rejected_creature and rejected_class entries are always empty. Squad_size is 0, except when a variable position (in the following sections) explicitly states otherwise (ie. squad size for CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2 is 20). Also most other entries (of entity_position entry under "own") not mentioned in their section have standard values (ie. are empty). The best_appointment_precedence of all positions is 30001. Also the execution skill is always set to "-1" even for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9, whose sole responsibility is executions.

Also, variable positions are usually only created (with the exception of if they replace another position), if the position will have at least one responsibility the already created (existing) positions for that entity does not have, regardless of whether there are any more prerequisites for a variable position to be created.

=== Sources ===
See spoiler-sections of those posts.
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178697.msg8295235#msg8295235
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8084095#msg8084095
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8083631#msg8083631 (first answer)

== Civilizations ==
If all positions of a civ are variable, then the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible positions) can be created. After the creation (and filling) of the law-maker positions, the other variable positions (both CUSTOM_OFFICIALS_i and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALS_i, where i stands for a non-zero natural number) can be created in any order. These other positions are then always appointed by the law-maker of the civ. The law-maker position itself uses succession by heir.

In contrast to, for example, the positions of the dwarven civilizations, where the site nobility positions (eg. baron, duke) do get added to the own position list (vector) of the civilization, the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2) positions (of a site government) are not added to the own position list (at least for civs with all variable positions). The "own" positions list (of the civ entity) only exclusively contains the variable positions of the civ, which are all created by the civ, and no positions which are the "ruler" of a site (even if the variable site position was appointed by the law maker of the civ). Also the "site" positions list is empty (or at least no entries were found so far).

The CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position for goblins civs (in vanilla) are automatically created with the creation of the entity and there is no historical event which mentions the creation of that position. For the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER positions of the human civs, there is always a historical event which mentions the creation of that position, where the creation reason "As a matter of course" is not possible, all other reasons, which are "Collaboration", "Threats of Violence", "Force of Argument" and "Wave of popular support", are possible (and seem equally likely to be used).

The following table gives an overview over the different possible rulers of a human or goblin civilization.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!succession type!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!is diplomat!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals,
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|yes
|no

|}

Note that the ruler (law-giver or master) is not a diplomat, if and only if the ruler has the military strategy responsibility. Otherwise it seems totally random, whether a ruler (law-giver) is a diplomat or not (ie. for human civilizations the position creation reason and the civilization values do not play any role at all). Also note that the master of a goblin civilization does not have peace agreements as a responsibility.

The creation of all non-ruling positions, ie. CUSTOM_OFFICIALs, of a civ are mentioned in the history, where all CUSTOM_OFFICIALs and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs will always be created "as a matter of course", only the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS and CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY positions can be created by any reason (including "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview of the possible non-ruling civ-level positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix!!Name5!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Flags11!!Flags22!!Color!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1
|yes3
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|receive diplomats, make introductions and make topic agreements; optional: espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2
|yes3
|justiciar
|law enforcement, collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|yes
|treasurer
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|yes
|advisor/counselor
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|yes3
|chamberlain
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|yes
|butler / cup-bearer
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|yes
|doctor
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|yes
|executioner
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|yes
|chef
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|yes
|housekeeper
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS4
|no
|war leader
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|no
|no
|}
: ''Note'':
:* 1) These are the standard official flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, has_met_pop_req, color, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* 2) These are the following additional flags: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 3): Name prefix can be empty.
:* 4) These would be the values for the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, but on the civ-level that position is not created, as the military goals responsibility is already performed by the law-giver/master (and for the military strategy responsibility the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position is created instead). But a CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position would be created, if the civ leader would not have the military goals responsibility. The CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position is - in vanilla - only created for site governments and then only, if the site leader is the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.
:* 5): Name prefixes are: high, head, chief and royal.

In the above table the responsibility "espionage" of the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is optional. A civ needs to have a "cunning" value of at least 11 for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 to have the responsibility, otherwise the official will not have the espionage responsibility, consequentially all CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of goblin civs will have the espionage responsibility (as their default cunning value is 15). Only if the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is created with the "espionage" responsibility such officials can also be created for the site governments, where the leader of the site-government is not called "law-giver", (as all other responsibility are already performed by the standard custom site ruler). Also, the columns "human" and "goblin" dictate whether human and/or goblin civilizations can have the positions.

== Site Governments ==
If all positions of a civ (and with that of a site government) are variable, then a leader position for the site government needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible variable positions) can be created. The created position is usually the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, but other positions have been found, ie. CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.

Note that if a site is taken over during a war, then a new leader can be created directly with the formation of a new site government (even if the all site positions of the new owning civ are variable and the old site government did not have any leaders), in such cases the new leader position is either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or - rarer - a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (only found, if the site taken over was a Town and both the defending and attacking civilization was human).

Note that human and goblin civilizations can also create further site positions, if the current site leader is the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER (both) or FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR (only encountered/found in case of humans). All other races (eg. dwarves and elves) cannot.

Also a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER can be created for a site government (of a human civilization) before a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER for the civilization has been created.

Also note that not all site government entities need to be a child of a civilization entity, if they are not, then the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is used as a site-ruler (regardless of race, ie. even dwarven and the rare elven site government without connection to a civ will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as initial ruler/leader). Ie. a Necromancer founding a tower will generate a site government (or site entity), which does not have any parent entity, and does function as a civ entity for any of its child entities (and will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as ruler). But such Necromancer entities are not the only site entities without a parent civ (which can have positions), ie. some (all?) groups construction forts (and where the creation of the entity coincides with the construction of the fort) will also not have a parent civ (and use the entity type site).

The following table gives an overview of the possible leader positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!Responsibilities!!squad8 size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!goblin!!human!!elf!!dwarf!!flags!!appointment type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER1
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55 or 10 (rare)
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes
|standard bandit leader
|elected

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|100
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes2
|forced admin
|none3

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR4
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|65
|no
|no
|no
|yes
|dwarf forced admin
|none3

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER5
|law-giver
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals; optional6: military strategy
|0
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|civ law-giver
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER6
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|40
|yes
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|41
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; appointed by law-giver (civ)

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_27
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|35
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; optional: appointed9

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Only leader position, if the entity (site-government) is not a child of a civilization, but can also appear, if the entity has a parent civ. Only site leader position of goblins, where other site positions will be created (both cases: with civ and without civ).
:* 2): 2 of the 53 forced administrator positions of dwarves (in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs) used this forced administrator (rather than the one defined in the raws). No site official positions found for goblins so far, if the leader was a forced administrator.
:* 3): The position has no appointed_by defined, nor any form of succession by position or heir. And the position is also not elected. So how and if a forced admin gets refilled, in case of death of the previous position holder, is unclear.
:* 4): This is the forced administrator as defined in the (vanilla) dwarf raws.
:* 5): Was created once in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs. The parent civ did not have a law-maker position created. But this definition is not always used, if the law-maker position of the parent civ has not been created. Also the site-entity was the original owner/creator of the site.
:* 6): This position can get created for a newly formed site-entity, if a site-entity has created the law-maker position and afterwards the site-entity gets conquered by another entity (of the same civ) and at the time of conquest no law-giver was created (yet) for the civ.
:* 7: Can be created (and replaces the former site ruler), if the ruler (of a human site entity) was either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER with the name "lord".
:* 8): If the squad size is greater than zero, then the squad members are called soldiers (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) or hearthpeople (otherwise).
:* 9): Always appointed by the law-giver of the civilization, if the previous site leader was a forced administrator. Otherwise the appointed_by (and appointed_by_civ) definition is either empty or set to the law-giver of the civ, eg. a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, which replaces a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, can be appointed (in which case appointed by the law-giver of the civ) or not be appointed at all.
:* "by heir" in the appointment type definition entry means, that the succession is by heir. If nothing else is mentioned in the table cell, then the position did get filled immediately upon creation of the position and the first position holder was not appointed by the civ-leader, otherwise the first position holder was appointed by the civ-leader.
:* "standard bandit leader" entry in "flags" table cell means the same flags as the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER of bandit groups are set.
:* "forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "dwarf forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, special_burial.
:* "standard leader" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "civ law-giver" entry in "flags" table cell means that the flags of the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (civ level) are set, where the is_diplomat flag is only set, if (and only if) the law-giver does not have the military strategy responsibility. Also in this case the is_diplomat flag is only set, if the "law-giver" (of the site entity) does not have the military strategy responsibility.
:* Remark to forced administrator: The only differences between the forced administrator (only usable by the dwarves and defined in the raws) and the other forced administrator are, that the forced administrator of the dwarves is not a quest giver, does not rule from a location and has a different precedence.
:* The color of all leaders is the standard noble color (5,0,1), except for the forced administrators, who uses a different color entry (5,0,0).

If a leader does exist for a site entity, other variable positions can be created for that entity. In rare cases a variable official (or market official) position can even be created, if the requirements are not met (at least one of the flags has_met_pop_req and has_met_market_req is false for the position entry).

The following table gives an overview of the non-ruler variable positions of a site government.

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix1!!Name!!Name suffix2!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Color!!human!!goblin!!add. flags3

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1
|no
|sewer
|always
|maintain sewers
|0
|0
|500
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_2
|no
|grain / harvest
|always
|food supply
|1
|0
|450
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_3
|no
|fire
|always
|fire safety
|0
|0
|475
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_4
|no
|judge / magistrate / justice
|no
|judge
|1
|0
|350
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_5
|no
|building
|always
|construction permits, building safety
|1
|0
|460
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|road
|always
|maintain roads, bridges and tunnels
|1
|0
|375
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_16,7,8
|optional
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|no
|espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_27,9
|optional
|justiciar
|no
|collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|always
|treasurer
|no
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|always
|advisor / counselor
|no
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|optional
|chamberlain
|no
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|no
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|always
|butler / cup-bearer
|no
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|always
|doctor
|no
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|always
|executioner
|no
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|always
|chef
|no
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|always
|housekeeper
|no
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY4
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|no
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS5
|no
|war leader
|no
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): The possible name prefixes are "chief", "head" and "high" (always) and also "royal", if the site leader has the name "law-giver". The name prefix can be empty, if the cell entry is "optional". A name prefix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 2): The possible name suffixes are "administrator", "caretaker", "commissioner", "master" and "official". A name suffix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 3): The additional flags are: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 4): Only ever created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR. Can even be created, if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 5): Only created, either after the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created and the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was not created with the military strategy responsibility or if the leader has the name law-giver (and does not have the military strategy responsibility). Can even be created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, who has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 6): If the leader name is not law-giver (and the first site leader was not a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), then a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has the espionage responsibility. All CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of a civ (regardless of whether the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 belongs to a site government or the civ government) will either have the espionage responsibility or do not have the espionage responsibility.
:* 7): If the leader has the name law-giver then this official position has the responsibilities (and also optional resp.) as given in the civ table for the official position and not the responsibilities as in this table. Ie. that is the only case where a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 can be created for a site government without the espionage responsibility.
:* 8): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has always the responsibility make introductions, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* 9): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2 has always the responsibility law enforcement, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* In the above table the columns "human" and "goblin" donate, whether a site government of a human civilization or of a goblin civilization can have that position (or at least, if the position was encountered so far). Note so far only goblin site governments with a CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER did have further positions created.
:* All CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs created during world-gen seem to have an already constructed market present (and thus are not created for site governments ruling over a Hamlet or a Dark Pit as Hamlets and Dark Pits cannot have a market, but need to be a Town or Dark Fortress). Additionally the CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1 needs an already constructed sewer (which seems to be only created, after both a market and a keep are constructed). Also note that sewers are only constructed in towns (in contrast to ie. markets, which can also be found/constructed in other site types like Dark Fortresses, Fortresses, Hillocks, Caves and Forest Retreats).
:* In addition to the above table the "best_appointment_precedence" is 30001. Also the following flags are set (true) for all officials, regardless, of whether belonging to a human or goblin site government: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, color, menial_work_exemption and has_received_positions.
:* All of the positions are appointed by the current ruler of the site (ie. CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), except the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position will be appointed by the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, if the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created prior and the current ruler of the site government is a forced administrator.

Additionally the position entry usually has the flag active set and the flag is_replaced is false, otherwise the position would no longer be active (and might have been replaced).

== Bandits ==
Bandits use the entity types 4 and 7, which are nomadic groups (type 4) and outcasts (type 7). It must also be noted that some CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER positions are used by site governments (typically goblin site governments) both with and without a parent civilization (site government is not a child of an entity of type 0). The creation of CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR positions is never mentioned as a historical event, but the creation of CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT is (and is always created "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview over the possible variable positions used by bandits (some further info on bandit leaders is below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!squad size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!add. flags1!!rules from location!!entity type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic, outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER2
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|10
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT3
|lieutenant
|appointed by bandit leader
|patrol territory, attack enemies
|0
|1
|0
|160
| -1
|no
|no
|outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR
|representative
|appointed by bandit leader
|trade and accounting
|0
|1
|0
|70
| -1
|yes (except is_law_maker)
|yes
|outcast

|}
: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt and quest_giver
:* 2): Only difference to the other CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is the increased precedence of 10, encountered in 11 of 148 bandit leaders (148 of 175 nomadic groups had leaders). The reason is of yet unknown, except that the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is also used by the goblin civilization (and some site governments, without an entity link to a parent civ, had a nomadic group with a custom bandit leader as a child entity).
:* 3: Currently only up-to one CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT will be created for Outcast groups, despite allowing for an unlimited number. The possible reason for one getting created at all is that an assignment definition is automatically created with the creation of the position itself (while ie. for Ranger Captain, Militia Captain etc. there is currently never an assignment created, as they are neither land-holders nor is their number tied to a location or site).
:* Further note the common flags of these positions are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* The entity type in the above table refers to the (as displayed by dfhack's gm-editor, when viewing an entity).

Additionally the bandit leader (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) always has a squad size of 20 and the squad members are referred to as "bandits".

== Religious Entities ==
Some religious entities, which are considered "child"-entities of civilizations (no religious entity which was not a "child" of a civ entity has been found so far), also have variable positions - the other religious entities have no positions at all.
If a religious entity rules a site (always monastery?), then the only variable position (of that entity) seems to be the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and the name of the position seems to be always "abbot".
Otherwise the variable positions PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created for that religious entity, where any such entity, if it has a position, will always have the PRIEST as position. Afterwards, the position HIGH_PRIEST can be created and at last - after the HIGH_PRIEST was created - the HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created. The names of these position are randomly created (more about the name generation is currently out-of-scope, ie. why a PRIEST might be called "sacred squid", "holy burial", "sacred rumor", "holy lemon" or "sacred paper" is out-of-scope at least for this wiki article). No temple is needed in an associated site for a religious entity (not ruling from a monastery) to create a priest, high priest or highest priest position.

Note that there is no historical event that mentions the creation of a PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST or HIGHEST_PRIEST position.

An overview on the positions of religious entities is given in the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name prefix!!name!!appointment type5!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!missing common flags1!!additional flags2

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER3
|
|abbot
|heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|100
|3
|2
|1
|is_diplomat
|all

|-
!PRIEST
|holy or sacred
|random4
|elected
|religion
|200
|0
|0
| -1
|none
|no

|-
!HIGH_PRIEST
|high, first or exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|50
|3
|2
| -1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|-
!HIGHEST_PRIEST
|absolute or most sacred/high/exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|1
|5
|3
|1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|}

Notes:
1): The common flags are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, is_leader, is_diplomat, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req. So if one of the flags is mentioned in a column, then the position does not have that flag.

2): The additional flags (in this case) are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, kill_quest, exported_in_legends, account_exempt, quest_giver, special_burial.

3): Is always the only position for that religious entity. And so far any such entity, which was found, always governed/ruled a monastery.

4): The name is one of the possible "name prefixes" for the position written before a completely random word, which may or may not depend on the religious spheres/domains worshipped by that religion.

5): The appointment/succession type is actually determined by flags, ie. elected and succession_by_heir. One of the flags is also true for these positions (but not explicitly mentioned in the common/additional flags).

Additional notes: The PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST have a variable color entry, but the color-flag (of the position entry) is false, so it is unclear whether currently the color entry has any effect.

== Mercenary Groups ==
All mercenary entities will have at least one position (the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER), this position is created with the creation of the group (and the creation of the entity is marked - in the history/legends - with the filling of the leader position). The only other possible position is the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER and the creation of the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER is mentioned as a historical event (and is always created "as a matter of course").

Basic information about both positions are found in the table below (and the explanations below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!! imp. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER
|usually "warlord", "leader", "general" or "overlord" but very unusual names are possible (see below table)
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER
|treasurer
|elected
|trade and accounting
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes: 1): The imp. flags are flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, punishment_exemption, kill_quest and quest giver.

Both positions also have the is_leader flag and the following flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.

For the mercenary leader also illustrious names such as lord twinkle, lord duty, lord savant, maze commander or secret commander can be created. In these cases the name seems to be generated by either adding a random word after the word lord or adding a random word before commander. Note that mercenary groups can bestow honors on either their members or their leaders and in case of leader only honors it might be that, instead of the leader name, the name of the currently highest bestowed honor (on the leader) is used.

== Guilds ==
All guilds will always have all four of the variable positions mentioned in this section. Note that "merchant guilds" are merchant companies and an entirely separate entity.

The following table gives an overview of the four guild positions.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!precedence!!demands!!mandates!!number!!add. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_LEADER
|dean/doyen
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|elected
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_ALDERPERSON
|alderperson
|meet workers, manage production
|elected
|150
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_STEWARD
|steward or treasurer
|trade
|elected
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_CLERK
|clerk, bookkeeper, recordkeeper
|accounting
|elected
|170
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes:
1): The additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill; chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, account_exempt, rules_from_location, punishment_exemption and quest_giver.

All positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions, has_met_market_positions.

== Merchant Companies ==
Every merchant company will have a leader (CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER). Furthermore a merchant company can have a CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR, to which an unlimited number of history figures can be assigned to (ie. a company can have multiple governors, but the number of current governors is always the same as the number of counting houses - branches - in non-headquarters sites). Also note that there is no history event, which mentions the creation of a position for a merchant company, still the CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR position is only created with creation of the first branch of a company (and branch creation - purchase of a counting house or building of a new counting house - and filling of custom company factor position are always at exactly the same time according to the corresponding historical events).

An overview of both positions is given by the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!additional flag

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER
|master or head
|elected or succession by heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military goals, military strategy
|50
|2
|1
|1
|is_law_maker

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR
|agent, factor, administrator or governor
|appointed by company leader
|trade and accounting
|200
|1
|0
| -1
|none

|}

Both positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, account_exempt, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver and has_met_market_req.

Also note that in contrast to many other variable positions (of different entities) for the CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER both an election based appointment (or succession) and an succesion by heir is possible, but each merchant company will only have an elected leader or a leader (with inheritance).

Variable positions

2026-03-27T18:18:12Z

Silverwing235: /* Tokens */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}
'''Variable positions''' are lesser [[noble|nobility]] titles that can be created by entity leaders after initial world generation.
In vanilla, this is the case for [[human]] and [[goblin]] [[Civilization|civilizations]], but also for merchants' companies, guilds, [[mercenary|mercenary groups]], [[Religion|religious groups]] and [[Criminal|criminal]]s.

== Tokens ==
The tokens that manage the creation of positions are {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}} and {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}.

SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows for the creation of lords, hearthpersons, and [[boss]]es, while VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows the creation of Law-makers.

== General Info ==
Initially, none of the positions marked as variable exist for an entity. The positions will only exist for a given entity, if they are either created during world-gen, world activities(?) or by memory hacking or scripting (ie. with Lua). Ie. in vanilla, all human civilizations have at the beginning of the world-generation no positions at all, neither on the site nor civ-level, as all positions of the vanilla human civs are marked as variable (variable positions: all). When a variable (civ level) position is created, the position is only created for that civilization (entity) and not for any other entities of the same type. Ie. the creation of a law-giver for one human civ does not create law-givers for other human civs. Also presumably all site-level positions for each entity are created on a per site basis, meaning the creation of a site ruler for one site (of a civ) does not also create the site ruler positions for any other site of that civ.

The existence of a variable position does not mean that the position will also be filled by a historical figure, but during world-gen the creation of a position will usually be followed up with the position being filled. Ie. the human historical figure who forced the creation of a law-giver position, will usually become the first law-giver.

For the succession rules of a variable position (after the position has been initially filled by a historical figure), presumably, the same rules as for non-variable positions apply.

(Disclaimer: The following only applies during world-gen and normal world activities. Scripting and memory hacking can circumvent the normal limitations, but with currently unknown results).

For civ level entities, if the law-giving position is a variable position, the law-giving position does not (seem to) have any further requirements to be created (ie. no other position being already created). Ie. this position can be created by force (or popular support etc.) by any historical figure of that civ. But for all other variable (civ-level) positions the law-giving position must exist as usually the historical figure, who is the law-giver, does create the other variable positions (for various reason).

Something similar is probably the case for site level positions. Ie. if the ruler of a site is a variable position, that position needs to be created, before any other site-level variable positions can be created. And the site ruler can afterwards create other variable positions for that site. It is not yet clear if a site level ruling position can be created before a civ level ruling (law-giving) position is created (or exists). This also means that it should be possible, via memory-hacking or scripting, to create (and fill) the variable site level positions (for a player site), at least after the civ level law-giving position has been created (and the law-giving position has been filled), so that a human player site gets the maximum possible human site level positions (with the normal appointment rules for the succession/reappointment of the positions), without having to edit the raw files (as outlined in the human civ page), prior to creating a world, to make the variable positions of human civilizations to "static" ones.

Presumably for guilds (Merchant Guild and others), mercenary groups, religious orders (and criminals) also a "leader" position needs to be created by a historical figure, before other variable positions for that entity can be created.

So far, no restrictions on allowed_class or allowed_creature have been found and also the rejected_creature and rejected_class entries are always empty. Squad_size is 0, except when a variable position (in the following sections) explicitly states otherwise (ie. squad size for CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2 is 20). Also most other entries (of entity_position entry under "own") not mentioned in their section have standard values (ie. are empty). The best_appointment_precedence of all positions is 30001. Also the execution skill is always set to "-1" even for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9, whose sole responsibility is executions.

Also, variable positions are usually only created (with the exception of if they replace another position), if the position will have at least one responsibility the already created (existing) positions for that entity does not have, regardless of whether there are any more prerequisites for a variable position to be created.

=== Sources ===
See spoiler-sections of those posts.
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178697.msg8295235#msg8295235
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8084095#msg8084095
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8083631#msg8083631 (first answer)

== Civilizations ==
If all positions of a civ are variable, then the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible positions) can be created. After the creation (and filling) of the law-maker positions, the other variable positions (both CUSTOM_OFFICIALS_i and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALS_i, where i stands for a non-zero natural number) can be created in any order. These other positions are then always appointed by the law-maker of the civ. The law-maker position itself uses succession by heir.

In contrast to, for example, the positions of the dwarven civilizations, where the site nobility positions (eg. baron, duke) do get added to the own position list (vector) of the civilization, the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2) positions (of a site government) are not added to the own position list (at least for civs with all variable positions). The "own" positions list (of the civ entity) only exclusively contains the variable positions of the civ, which are all created by the civ, and no positions which are the "ruler" of a site (even if the variable site position was appointed by the law maker of the civ). Also the "site" positions list is empty (or at least no entries were found so far).

The CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position for goblins civs (in vanilla) are automatically created with the creation of the entity and there is no historical event which mentions the creation of that position. For the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER positions of the human civs, there is always a historical event which mentions the creation of that position, where the creation reason "As a matter of course" is not possible, all other reasons, which are "Collaboration", "Threats of Violence", "Force of Argument" and "Wave of popular support", are possible (and seem equally likely to be used).

The following table gives an overview over the different possible rulers of a human or goblin civilization.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!succession type!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!is diplomat!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals,
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|yes
|no

|}

Note that the ruler (law-giver or master) is not a diplomat, if and only if the ruler has the military strategy responsibility. Otherwise it seems totally random, whether a ruler (law-giver) is a diplomat or not (ie. for human civilizations the position creation reason and the civilization values do not play any role at all). Also note that the master of a goblin civilization does not have peace agreements as a responsibility.

The creation of all non-ruling positions, ie. CUSTOM_OFFICIALs, of a civ are mentioned in the history, where all CUSTOM_OFFICIALs and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs will always be created "as a matter of course", only the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS and CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY positions can be created by any reason (including "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview of the possible non-ruling civ-level positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix!!Name5!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Flags11!!Flags22!!Color!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1
|yes3
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|receive diplomats, make introductions and make topic agreements; optional: espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2
|yes3
|justiciar
|law enforcement, collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|yes
|treasurer
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|yes
|advisor/counselor
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|yes3
|chamberlain
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|yes
|butler / cup-bearer
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|yes
|doctor
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|yes
|executioner
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|yes
|chef
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|yes
|housekeeper
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS4
|no
|war leader
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|no
|no
|}
: ''Note'':
:* 1) These are the standard official flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, has_met_pop_req, color, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* 2) These are the following additional flags: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 3): Name prefix can be empty.
:* 4) These would be the values for the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, but on the civ-level that position is not created, as the military goals responsibility is already performed by the law-giver/master (and for the military strategy responsibility the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position is created instead). But a CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position would be created, if the civ leader would not have the military goals responsibility. The CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position is - in vanilla - only created for site governments and then only, if the site leader is the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.
:* 5): Name prefixes are: high, head, chief and royal.

In the above table the responsibility "espionage" of the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is optional. A civ needs to have a "cunning" value of at least 11 for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 to have the responsibility, otherwise the official will not have the espionage responsibility, consequentially all CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of goblin civs will have the espionage responsibility (as their default cunning value is 15). Only if the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is created with the "espionage" responsibility such officials can also be created for the site governments, where the leader of the site-government is not called "law-giver", (as all other responsibility are already performed by the standard custom site ruler). Also, the columns "human" and "goblin" dictate whether human and/or goblin civilizations can have the positions.

== Site Governments ==
If all positions of a civ (and with that of a site government) are variable, then a leader position for the site government needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible variable positions) can be created. The created position is usually the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, but other positions have been found, ie. CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.

Note that if a site is taken over during a war, then a new leader can be created directly with the formation of a new site government (even if the all site positions of the new owning civ are variable and the old site government did not have any leaders), in such cases the new leader position is either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or - rarer - a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (only found, if the site taken over was a Town and both the defending and attacking civilization was human).

Note that human and goblin civilizations can also create further site positions, if the current site leader is the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER (both) or FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR (only encountered/found in case of humans). All other races (eg. dwarves and elves) cannot.

Also a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER can be created for a site government (of a human civilization) before a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER for the civilization has been created.

Also note that not all site government entities need to be a child of a civilization entity, if they are not, then the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is used as a site-ruler (regardless of race, ie. even dwarven and the rare elven site government without connection to a civ will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as initial ruler/leader). Ie. a Necromancer founding a tower will generate a site government (or site entity), which does not have any parent entity, and does function as a civ entity for any of its child entities (and will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as ruler). But such Necromancer entities are not the only site entities without a parent civ (which can have positions), ie. some (all?) groups construction forts (and where the creation of the entity coincides with the construction of the fort) will also not have a parent civ (and use the entity type site).

The following table gives an overview of the possible leader positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!Responsibilities!!squad8 size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!goblin!!human!!elf!!dwarf!!flags!!appointment type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER1
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55 or 10 (rare)
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes
|standard bandit leader
|elected

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|100
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes2
|forced admin
|none3

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR4
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|65
|no
|no
|no
|yes
|dwarf forced admin
|none3

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER5
|law-giver
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals; optional6: military strategy
|0
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|civ law-giver
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER6
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|40
|yes
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|41
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; appointed by law-giver (civ)

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_27
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|35
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; optional: appointed9

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Only leader position, if the entity (site-government) is not a child of a civilization, but can also appear, if the entity has a parent civ. Only site leader position of goblins, where other site positions will be created (both cases: with civ and without civ).
:* 2): 2 of the 53 forced administrator positions of dwarves (in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs) used this forced administrator (rather than the one defined in the raws). No site official positions found for goblins so far, if the leader was a forced administrator.
:* 3): The position has no appointed_by defined, nor any form of succession by position or heir. And the position is also not elected. So how and if a forced admin gets refilled, in case of death of the previous position holder, is unclear.
:* 4): This is the forced administrator as defined in the (vanilla) dwarf raws.
:* 5): Was created once in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs. The parent civ did not have a law-maker position created. But this definition is not always used, if the law-maker position of the parent civ has not been created. Also the site-entity was the original owner/creator of the site.
:* 6): This position can get created for a newly formed site-entity, if a site-entity has created the law-maker position and afterwards the site-entity gets conquered by another entity (of the same civ) and at the time of conquest no law-giver was created (yet) for the civ.
:* 7: Can be created (and replaces the former site ruler), if the ruler (of a human site entity) was either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER with the name "lord".
:* 8): If the squad size is greater than zero, then the squad members are called soldiers (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) or hearthpeople (otherwise).
:* 9): Always appointed by the law-giver of the civilization, if the previous site leader was a forced administrator. Otherwise the appointed_by (and appointed_by_civ) definition is either empty or set to the law-giver of the civ, eg. a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, which replaces a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, can be appointed (in which case appointed by the law-giver of the civ) or not be appointed at all.
:* "by heir" in the appointment type definition entry means, that the succession is by heir. If nothing else is mentioned in the table cell, then the position did get filled immediately upon creation of the position and the first position holder was not appointed by the civ-leader, otherwise the first position holder was appointed by the civ-leader.
:* "standard bandit leader" entry in "flags" table cell means the same flags as the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER of bandit groups are set.
:* "forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "dwarf forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, special_burial.
:* "standard leader" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "civ law-giver" entry in "flags" table cell means that the flags of the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (civ level) are set, where the is_diplomat flag is only set, if (and only if) the law-giver does not have the military strategy responsibility. Also in this case the is_diplomat flag is only set, if the "law-giver" (of the site entity) does not have the military strategy responsibility.
:* Remark to forced administrator: The only differences between the forced administrator (only usable by the dwarves and defined in the raws) and the other forced administrator are, that the forced administrator of the dwarves is not a quest giver, does not rule from a location and has a different precedence.
:* The color of all leaders is the standard noble color (5,0,1), except for the forced administrators, who uses a different color entry (5,0,0).

If a leader does exist for a site entity, other variable positions can be created for that entity. In rare cases a variable official (or market official) position can even be created, if the requirements are not met (at least one of the flags has_met_pop_req and has_met_market_req is false for the position entry).

The following table gives an overview of the non-ruler variable positions of a site government.

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix1!!Name!!Name suffix2!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Color!!human!!goblin!!add. flags3

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1
|no
|sewer
|always
|maintain sewers
|0
|0
|500
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_2
|no
|grain / harvest
|always
|food supply
|1
|0
|450
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_3
|no
|fire
|always
|fire safety
|0
|0
|475
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_4
|no
|judge / magistrate / justice
|no
|judge
|1
|0
|350
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_5
|no
|building
|always
|construction permits, building safety
|1
|0
|460
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|road
|always
|maintain roads, bridges and tunnels
|1
|0
|375
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_16,7,8
|optional
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|no
|espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_27,9
|optional
|justiciar
|no
|collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|always
|treasurer
|no
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|always
|advisor / counselor
|no
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|optional
|chamberlain
|no
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|no
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|always
|butler / cup-bearer
|no
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|always
|doctor
|no
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|always
|executioner
|no
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|always
|chef
|no
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|always
|housekeeper
|no
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY4
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|no
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS5
|no
|war leader
|no
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): The possible name prefixes are "chief", "head" and "high" (always) and also "royal", if the site leader has the name "law-giver". The name prefix can be empty, if the cell entry is "optional". A name prefix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 2): The possible name suffixes are "administrator", "caretaker", "commissioner", "master" and "official". A name suffix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 3): The additional flags are: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 4): Only ever created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR. Can even be created, if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 5): Only created, either after the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created and the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was not created with the military strategy responsibility or if the leader has the name law-giver (and does not have the military strategy responsibility). Can even be created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, who has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 6): If the leader name is not law-giver (and the first site leader was not a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), then a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has the espionage responsibility. All CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of a civ (regardless of whether the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 belongs to a site government or the civ government) will either have the espionage responsibility or do not have the espionage responsibility.
:* 7): If the leader has the name law-giver then this official position has the responsibilities (and also optional resp.) as given in the civ table for the official position and not the responsibilities as in this table. Ie. that is the only case where a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 can be created for a site government without the espionage responsibility.
:* 8): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has always the responsibility make introductions, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* 9): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2 has always the responsibility law enforcement, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* In the above table the columns "human" and "goblin" donate, whether a site government of a human civilization or of a goblin civilization can have that position (or at least, if the position was encountered so far). Note so far only goblin site governments with a CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER did have further positions created.
:* All CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs created during world-gen seem to have an already constructed market present (and thus are not created for site governments ruling over a Hamlet or a Dark Pit as Hamlets and Dark Pits cannot have a market, but need to be a Town or Dark Fortress). Additionally the CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1 needs an already constructed sewer (which seems to be only created, after both a market and a keep are constructed). Also note that sewers are only constructed in towns (in contrast to ie. markets, which can also be found/constructed in other site types like Dark Fortresses, Fortresses, Hillocks, Caves and Forest Retreats).
:* In addition to the above table the "best_appointment_precedence" is 30001. Also the following flags are set (true) for all officials, regardless, of whether belonging to a human or goblin site government: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, color, menial_work_exemption and has_received_positions.
:* All of the positions are appointed by the current ruler of the site (ie. CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), except the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position will be appointed by the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, if the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created prior and the current ruler of the site government is a forced administrator.

Additionally the position entry usually has the flag active set and the flag is_replaced is false, otherwise the position would no longer be active (and might have been replaced).

== Bandits ==
Bandits use the entity types 4 and 7, which are nomadic groups (type 4) and outcasts (type 7). It must also be noted that some CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER positions are used by site governments (typically goblin site governments) both with and without a parent civilization (site government is not a child of an entity of type 0). The creation of CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR positions is never mentioned as a historical event, but the creation of CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT is (and is always created "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview over the possible variable positions used by bandits (some further info on bandit leaders is below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!squad size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!add. flags1!!rules from location!!entity type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic, outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER2
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|10
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT3
|lieutenant
|appointed by bandit leader
|patrol territory, attack enemies
|0
|1
|0
|160
| -1
|no
|no
|outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR
|representative
|appointed by bandit leader
|trade and accounting
|0
|1
|0
|70
| -1
|yes (except is_law_maker)
|yes
|outcast

|}
: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt and quest_giver
:* 2): Only difference to the other CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is the increased precedence of 10, encountered in 11 of 148 bandit leaders (148 of 175 nomadic groups had leaders). The reason is of yet unknown, except that the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is also used by the goblin civilization (and some site governments, without an entity link to a parent civ, had a nomadic group with a custom bandit leader as a child entity).
:* 3: Currently only up-to one CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT will be created for Outcast groups, despite allowing for an unlimited number. The possible reason for one getting created at all is that an assignment definition is automatically created with the creation of the position itself (while ie. for Ranger Captain, Militia Captain etc. there is currently never an assignment created, as they are neither land-holders nor is their number tied to a location or site).
:* Further note the common flags of these positions are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* The entity type in the above table refers to the (as displayed by dfhack's gm-editor, when viewing an entity).

Additionally the bandit leader (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) always has a squad size of 20 and the squad members are referred to as "bandits".

== Religious Entities ==
Some religious entities, which are considered "child"-entities of civilizations (no religious entity which was not a "child" of a civ entity has been found so far), also have variable positions - the other religious entities have no positions at all.
If a religious entity rules a site (always monastery?), then the only variable position (of that entity) seems to be the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and the name of the position seems to be always "abbot".
Otherwise the variable positions PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created for that religious entity, where any such entity, if it has a position, will always have the PRIEST as position. Afterwards, the position HIGH_PRIEST can be created and at last - after the HIGH_PRIEST was created - the HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created. The names of these position are randomly created (more about the name generation is currently out-of-scope, ie. why a PRIEST might be called "sacred squid", "holy burial", "sacred rumor", "holy lemon" or "sacred paper" is out-of-scope at least for this wiki article). No temple is needed in an associated site for a religious entity (not ruling from a monastery) to create a priest, high priest or highest priest position.

Note that there is no historical event that mentions the creation of a PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST or HIGHEST_PRIEST position.

An overview on the positions of religious entities is given in the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name prefix!!name!!appointment type5!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!missing common flags1!!additional flags2

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER3
|
|abbot
|heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|100
|3
|2
|1
|is_diplomat
|all

|-
!PRIEST
|holy or sacred
|random4
|elected
|religion
|200
|0
|0
| -1
|none
|no

|-
!HIGH_PRIEST
|high, first or exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|50
|3
|2
| -1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|-
!HIGHEST_PRIEST
|absolute or most sacred/high/exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|1
|5
|3
|1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|}

Notes:
1): The common flags are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, is_leader, is_diplomat, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req. So if one of the flags is mentioned in a column, then the position does not have that flag.

2): The additional flags (in this case) are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, kill_quest, exported_in_legends, account_exempt, quest_giver, special_burial.

3): Is always the only position for that religious entity. And so far any such entity, which was found, always governed/ruled a monastery.

4): The name is one of the possible "name prefixes" for the position written before a completely random word, which may or may not depend on the religious spheres/domains worshipped by that religion.

5): The appointment/succession type is actually determined by flags, ie. elected and succession_by_heir. One of the flags is also true for these positions (but not explicitly mentioned in the common/additional flags).

Additional notes: The PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST have a variable color entry, but the color-flag (of the position entry) is false, so it is unclear whether currently the color entry has any effect.

== Mercenary Groups ==
All mercenary entities will have at least one position (the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER), this position is created with the creation of the group (and the creation of the entity is marked - in the history/legends - with the filling of the leader position). The only other possible position is the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER and the creation of the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER is mentioned as a historical event (and is always created "as a matter of course").

Basic information about both positions are found in the table below (and the explanations below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!! imp. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER
|usually "warlord", "leader", "general" or "overlord" but very unusual names are possible (see below table)
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER
|treasurer
|elected
|trade and accounting
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes: 1): The imp. flags are flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, punishment_exemption, kill_quest and quest giver.

Both positions also have the is_leader flag and the following flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.

For the mercenary leader also illustrious names such as lord twinkle, lord duty, lord savant, maze commander or secret commander can be created. In these cases the name seems to be generated by either adding a random word after the word lord or adding a random word before commander. Note that mercenary groups can bestow honors on either their members or their leaders and in case of leader only honors it might be that, instead of the leader name, the name of the currently highest bestowed honor (on the leader) is used.

== Guilds ==
All guilds will always have all four of the variable positions mentioned in this section. Note that "merchant guilds" are merchant companies and an entirely separate entity.

The following table gives an overview of the four guild positions.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!precedence!!demands!!mandates!!number!!add. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_LEADER
|dean/doyen
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|elected
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_ALDERPERSON
|alderperson
|meet workers, manage production
|elected
|150
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_STEWARD
|steward or treasurer
|trade
|elected
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_CLERK
|clerk, bookkeeper, recordkeeper
|accounting
|elected
|170
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes:
1): The additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill; chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, account_exempt, rules_from_location, punishment_exemption and quest_giver.

All positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions, has_met_market_positions.

== Merchant Companies ==
Every merchant company will have a leader (CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER). Furthermore a merchant company can have a CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR, to which an unlimited number of history figures can be assigned to (ie. a company can have multiple governors, but the number of current governors is always the same as the number of counting houses - branches - in non-headquarters sites). Also note that there is no history event, which mentions the creation of a position for a merchant company, still the CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR position is only created with creation of the first branch of a company (and branch creation - purchase of a counting house or building of a new counting house - and filling of custom company factor position are always at exactly the same time according to the corresponding historical events).

An overview of both positions is given by the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!additional flag

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER
|master or head
|elected or succession by heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military goals, military strategy
|50
|2
|1
|1
|is_law_maker

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR
|agent, factor, administrator or governor
|appointed by company leader
|trade and accounting
|200
|1
|0
| -1
|none

|}

Both positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, account_exempt, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver and has_met_market_req.

Also note that in contrast to many other variable positions (of different entities) for the CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER both an election based appointment (or succession) and an succesion by heir is possible, but each merchant company will only have an elected leader or a leader (with inheritance).

Variable positions

2026-03-27T14:54:04Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}
'''Variable positions''' are lesser [[noble|nobility]] titles that can be created by entity leaders after initial world generation.
In vanilla, this is the case for [[human]] and [[goblin]] [[Civilization|civilizations]], but also for merchants' companies, guilds, [[mercenary|mercenary groups]], [[Religion|religious groups]] and [[Criminal|criminal]]s.

== Tokens ==
The tokens that manage the creation of positions are {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}} and {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}.

SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows for the creation of lords, hearthpersons, and [[boss]]es, and VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows creation of Law-makers.

== General Info ==
Initially, none of the positions marked as variable exist for an entity. The positions will only exist for a given entity, if they are either created during world-gen, world activities(?) or by memory hacking or scripting (ie. with Lua). Ie. in vanilla, all human civilizations have at the beginning of the world-generation no positions at all, neither on the site nor civ-level, as all positions of the vanilla human civs are marked as variable (variable positions: all). When a variable (civ level) position is created, the position is only created for that civilization (entity) and not for any other entities of the same type. Ie. the creation of a law-giver for one human civ does not create law-givers for other human civs. Also presumably all site-level positions for each entity are created on a per site basis, meaning the creation of a site ruler for one site (of a civ) does not also create the site ruler positions for any other site of that civ.

The existence of a variable position does not mean that the position will also be filled by a historical figure, but during world-gen the creation of a position will usually be followed up with the position being filled. Ie. the human historical figure who forced the creation of a law-giver position, will usually become the first law-giver.

For the succession rules of a variable position (after the position has been initially filled by a historical figure), presumably, the same rules as for non-variable positions apply.

(Disclaimer: The following only applies during world-gen and normal world activities. Scripting and memory hacking can circumvent the normal limitations, but with currently unknown results).

For civ level entities, if the law-giving position is a variable position, the law-giving position does not (seem to) have any further requirements to be created (ie. no other position being already created). Ie. this position can be created by force (or popular support etc.) by any historical figure of that civ. But for all other variable (civ-level) positions the law-giving position must exist as usually the historical figure, who is the law-giver, does create the other variable positions (for various reason).

Something similar is probably the case for site level positions. Ie. if the ruler of a site is a variable position, that position needs to be created, before any other site-level variable positions can be created. And the site ruler can afterwards create other variable positions for that site. It is not yet clear if a site level ruling position can be created before a civ level ruling (law-giving) position is created (or exists). This also means that it should be possible, via memory-hacking or scripting, to create (and fill) the variable site level positions (for a player site), at least after the civ level law-giving position has been created (and the law-giving position has been filled), so that a human player site gets the maximum possible human site level positions (with the normal appointment rules for the succession/reappointment of the positions), without having to edit the raw files (as outlined in the human civ page), prior to creating a world, to make the variable positions of human civilizations to "static" ones.

Presumably for guilds (Merchant Guild and others), mercenary groups, religious orders (and criminals) also a "leader" position needs to be created by a historical figure, before other variable positions for that entity can be created.

So far, no restrictions on allowed_class or allowed_creature have been found and also the rejected_creature and rejected_class entries are always empty. Squad_size is 0, except when a variable position (in the following sections) explicitly states otherwise (ie. squad size for CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2 is 20). Also most other entries (of entity_position entry under "own") not mentioned in their section have standard values (ie. are empty). The best_appointment_precedence of all positions is 30001. Also the execution skill is always set to "-1" even for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9, whose sole responsibility is executions.

Also, variable positions are usually only created (with the exception of if they replace another position), if the position will have at least one responsibility the already created (existing) positions for that entity does not have, regardless of whether there are any more prerequisites for a variable position to be created.

=== Sources ===
See spoiler-sections of those posts.
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178697.msg8295235#msg8295235
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8084095#msg8084095
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8083631#msg8083631 (first answer)

== Civilizations ==
If all positions of a civ are variable, then the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible positions) can be created. After the creation (and filling) of the law-maker positions, the other variable positions (both CUSTOM_OFFICIALS_i and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALS_i, where i stands for a non-zero natural number) can be created in any order. These other positions are then always appointed by the law-maker of the civ. The law-maker position itself uses succession by heir.

In contrast to, for example, the positions of the dwarven civilizations, where the site nobility positions (eg. baron, duke) do get added to the own position list (vector) of the civilization, the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2) positions (of a site government) are not added to the own position list (at least for civs with all variable positions). The "own" positions list (of the civ entity) only exclusively contains the variable positions of the civ, which are all created by the civ, and no positions which are the "ruler" of a site (even if the variable site position was appointed by the law maker of the civ). Also the "site" positions list is empty (or at least no entries were found so far).

The CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position for goblins civs (in vanilla) are automatically created with the creation of the entity and there is no historical event which mentions the creation of that position. For the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER positions of the human civs, there is always a historical event which mentions the creation of that position, where the creation reason "As a matter of course" is not possible, all other reasons, which are "Collaboration", "Threats of Violence", "Force of Argument" and "Wave of popular support", are possible (and seem equally likely to be used).

The following table gives an overview over the different possible rulers of a human or goblin civilization.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!succession type!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!is diplomat!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals,
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|yes
|no

|}

Note that the ruler (law-giver or master) is not a diplomat, if and only if the ruler has the military strategy responsibility. Otherwise it seems totally random, whether a ruler (law-giver) is a diplomat or not (ie. for human civilizations the position creation reason and the civilization values do not play any role at all). Also note that the master of a goblin civilization does not have peace agreements as a responsibility.

The creation of all non-ruling positions, ie. CUSTOM_OFFICIALs, of a civ are mentioned in the history, where all CUSTOM_OFFICIALs and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs will always be created "as a matter of course", only the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS and CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY positions can be created by any reason (including "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview of the possible non-ruling civ-level positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix!!Name5!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Flags11!!Flags22!!Color!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1
|yes3
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|receive diplomats, make introductions and make topic agreements; optional: espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2
|yes3
|justiciar
|law enforcement, collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|yes
|treasurer
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|yes
|advisor/counselor
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|yes3
|chamberlain
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|yes
|butler / cup-bearer
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|yes
|doctor
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|yes
|executioner
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|yes
|chef
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|yes
|housekeeper
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS4
|no
|war leader
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|no
|no
|}
: ''Note'':
:* 1) These are the standard official flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, has_met_pop_req, color, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* 2) These are the following additional flags: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 3): Name prefix can be empty.
:* 4) These would be the values for the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, but on the civ-level that position is not created, as the military goals responsibility is already performed by the law-giver/master (and for the military strategy responsibility the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position is created instead). But a CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position would be created, if the civ leader would not have the military goals responsibility. The CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position is - in vanilla - only created for site governments and then only, if the site leader is the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.
:* 5): Name prefixes are: high, head, chief and royal.

In the above table the responsibility "espionage" of the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is optional. A civ needs to have a "cunning" value of at least 11 for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 to have the responsibility, otherwise the official will not have the espionage responsibility, consequentially all CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of goblin civs will have the espionage responsibility (as their default cunning value is 15). Only if the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is created with the "espionage" responsibility such officials can also be created for the site governments, where the leader of the site-government is not called "law-giver", (as all other responsibility are already performed by the standard custom site ruler). Also, the columns "human" and "goblin" dictate whether human and/or goblin civilizations can have the positions.

== Site Governments ==
If all positions of a civ (and with that of a site government) are variable, then a leader position for the site government needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible variable positions) can be created. The created position is usually the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, but other positions have been found, ie. CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.

Note that if a site is taken over during a war, then a new leader can be created directly with the formation of a new site government (even if the all site positions of the new owning civ are variable and the old site government did not have any leaders), in such cases the new leader position is either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or - rarer - a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (only found, if the site taken over was a Town and both the defending and attacking civilization was human).

Note that human and goblin civilizations can also create further site positions, if the current site leader is the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER (both) or FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR (only encountered/found in case of humans). All other races (eg. dwarves and elves) cannot.

Also a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER can be created for a site government (of a human civilization) before a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER for the civilization has been created.

Also note that not all site government entities need to be a child of a civilization entity, if they are not, then the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is used as a site-ruler (regardless of race, ie. even dwarven and the rare elven site government without connection to a civ will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as initial ruler/leader). Ie. a Necromancer founding a tower will generate a site government (or site entity), which does not have any parent entity, and does function as a civ entity for any of its child entities (and will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as ruler). But such Necromancer entities are not the only site entities without a parent civ (which can have positions), ie. some (all?) groups construction forts (and where the creation of the entity coincides with the construction of the fort) will also not have a parent civ (and use the entity type site).

The following table gives an overview of the possible leader positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!Responsibilities!!squad8 size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!goblin!!human!!elf!!dwarf!!flags!!appointment type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER1
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55 or 10 (rare)
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes
|standard bandit leader
|elected

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|100
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes2
|forced admin
|none3

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR4
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|65
|no
|no
|no
|yes
|dwarf forced admin
|none3

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER5
|law-giver
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals; optional6: military strategy
|0
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|civ law-giver
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER6
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|40
|yes
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|41
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; appointed by law-giver (civ)

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_27
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|35
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; optional: appointed9

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Only leader position, if the entity (site-government) is not a child of a civilization, but can also appear, if the entity has a parent civ. Only site leader position of goblins, where other site positions will be created (both cases: with civ and without civ).
:* 2): 2 of the 53 forced administrator positions of dwarves (in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs) used this forced administrator (rather than the one defined in the raws). No site official positions found for goblins so far, if the leader was a forced administrator.
:* 3): The position has no appointed_by defined, nor any form of succession by position or heir. And the position is also not elected. So how and if a forced admin gets refilled, in case of death of the previous position holder, is unclear.
:* 4): This is the forced administrator as defined in the (vanilla) dwarf raws.
:* 5): Was created once in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs. The parent civ did not have a law-maker position created. But this definition is not always used, if the law-maker position of the parent civ has not been created. Also the site-entity was the original owner/creator of the site.
:* 6): This position can get created for a newly formed site-entity, if a site-entity has created the law-maker position and afterwards the site-entity gets conquered by another entity (of the same civ) and at the time of conquest no law-giver was created (yet) for the civ.
:* 7: Can be created (and replaces the former site ruler), if the ruler (of a human site entity) was either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER with the name "lord".
:* 8): If the squad size is greater than zero, then the squad members are called soldiers (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) or hearthpeople (otherwise).
:* 9): Always appointed by the law-giver of the civilization, if the previous site leader was a forced administrator. Otherwise the appointed_by (and appointed_by_civ) definition is either empty or set to the law-giver of the civ, eg. a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, which replaces a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, can be appointed (in which case appointed by the law-giver of the civ) or not be appointed at all.
:* "by heir" in the appointment type definition entry means, that the succession is by heir. If nothing else is mentioned in the table cell, then the position did get filled immediately upon creation of the position and the first position holder was not appointed by the civ-leader, otherwise the first position holder was appointed by the civ-leader.
:* "standard bandit leader" entry in "flags" table cell means the same flags as the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER of bandit groups are set.
:* "forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "dwarf forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, special_burial.
:* "standard leader" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "civ law-giver" entry in "flags" table cell means that the flags of the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (civ level) are set, where the is_diplomat flag is only set, if (and only if) the law-giver does not have the military strategy responsibility. Also in this case the is_diplomat flag is only set, if the "law-giver" (of the site entity) does not have the military strategy responsibility.
:* Remark to forced administrator: The only differences between the forced administrator (only usable by the dwarves and defined in the raws) and the other forced administrator are, that the forced administrator of the dwarves is not a quest giver, does not rule from a location and has a different precedence.
:* The color of all leaders is the standard noble color (5,0,1), except for the forced administrators, who uses a different color entry (5,0,0).

If a leader does exist for a site entity, other variable positions can be created for that entity. In rare cases a variable official (or market official) position can even be created, if the requirements are not met (at least one of the flags has_met_pop_req and has_met_market_req is false for the position entry).

The following table gives an overview of the non-ruler variable positions of a site government.

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix1!!Name!!Name suffix2!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Color!!human!!goblin!!add. flags3

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1
|no
|sewer
|always
|maintain sewers
|0
|0
|500
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_2
|no
|grain / harvest
|always
|food supply
|1
|0
|450
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_3
|no
|fire
|always
|fire safety
|0
|0
|475
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_4
|no
|judge / magistrate / justice
|no
|judge
|1
|0
|350
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_5
|no
|building
|always
|construction permits, building safety
|1
|0
|460
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|road
|always
|maintain roads, bridges and tunnels
|1
|0
|375
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_16,7,8
|optional
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|no
|espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_27,9
|optional
|justiciar
|no
|collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|always
|treasurer
|no
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|always
|advisor / counselor
|no
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|optional
|chamberlain
|no
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|no
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|always
|butler / cup-bearer
|no
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|always
|doctor
|no
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|always
|executioner
|no
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|always
|chef
|no
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|always
|housekeeper
|no
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY4
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|no
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS5
|no
|war leader
|no
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): The possible name prefixes are "chief", "head" and "high" (always) and also "royal", if the site leader has the name "law-giver". The name prefix can be empty, if the cell entry is "optional". A name prefix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 2): The possible name suffixes are "administrator", "caretaker", "commissioner", "master" and "official". A name suffix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 3): The additional flags are: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 4): Only ever created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR. Can even be created, if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 5): Only created, either after the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created and the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was not created with the military strategy responsibility or if the leader has the name law-giver (and does not have the military strategy responsibility). Can even be created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, who has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 6): If the leader name is not law-giver (and the first site leader was not a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), then a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has the espionage responsibility. All CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of a civ (regardless of whether the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 belongs to a site government or the civ government) will either have the espionage responsibility or do not have the espionage responsibility.
:* 7): If the leader has the name law-giver then this official position has the responsibilities (and also optional resp.) as given in the civ table for the official position and not the responsibilities as in this table. Ie. that is the only case where a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 can be created for a site government without the espionage responsibility.
:* 8): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has always the responsibility make introductions, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* 9): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2 has always the responsibility law enforcement, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* In the above table the columns "human" and "goblin" donate, whether a site government of a human civilization or of a goblin civilization can have that position (or at least, if the position was encountered so far). Note so far only goblin site governments with a CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER did have further positions created.
:* All CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs created during world-gen seem to have an already constructed market present (and thus are not created for site governments ruling over a Hamlet or a Dark Pit as Hamlets and Dark Pits cannot have a market, but need to be a Town or Dark Fortress). Additionally the CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1 needs an already constructed sewer (which seems to be only created, after both a market and a keep are constructed). Also note that sewers are only constructed in towns (in contrast to ie. markets, which can also be found/constructed in other site types like Dark Fortresses, Fortresses, Hillocks, Caves and Forest Retreats).
:* In addition to the above table the "best_appointment_precedence" is 30001. Also the following flags are set (true) for all officials, regardless, of whether belonging to a human or goblin site government: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, color, menial_work_exemption and has_received_positions.
:* All of the positions are appointed by the current ruler of the site (ie. CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), except the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position will be appointed by the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, if the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created prior and the current ruler of the site government is a forced administrator.

Additionally the position entry usually has the flag active set and the flag is_replaced is false, otherwise the position would no longer be active (and might have been replaced).

== Bandits ==
Bandits use the entity types 4 and 7, which are nomadic groups (type 4) and outcasts (type 7). It must also be noted that some CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER positions are used by site governments (typically goblin site governments) both with and without a parent civilization (site government is not a child of an entity of type 0). The creation of CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR positions is never mentioned as a historical event, but the creation of CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT is (and is always created "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview over the possible variable positions used by bandits (some further info on bandit leaders is below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!squad size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!add. flags1!!rules from location!!entity type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic, outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER2
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|10
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT3
|lieutenant
|appointed by bandit leader
|patrol territory, attack enemies
|0
|1
|0
|160
| -1
|no
|no
|outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR
|representative
|appointed by bandit leader
|trade and accounting
|0
|1
|0
|70
| -1
|yes (except is_law_maker)
|yes
|outcast

|}
: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt and quest_giver
:* 2): Only difference to the other CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is the increased precedence of 10, encountered in 11 of 148 bandit leaders (148 of 175 nomadic groups had leaders). The reason is of yet unknown, except that the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is also used by the goblin civilization (and some site governments, without an entity link to a parent civ, had a nomadic group with a custom bandit leader as a child entity).
:* 3: Currently only up-to one CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT will be created for Outcast groups, despite allowing for an unlimited number. The possible reason for one getting created at all is that an assignment definition is automatically created with the creation of the position itself (while ie. for Ranger Captain, Militia Captain etc. there is currently never an assignment created, as they are neither land-holders nor is their number tied to a location or site).
:* Further note the common flags of these positions are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* The entity type in the above table refers to the (as displayed by dfhack's gm-editor, when viewing an entity).

Additionally the bandit leader (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) always has a squad size of 20 and the squad members are referred to as "bandits".

== Religious Entities ==
Some religious entities, which are considered "child"-entities of civilizations (no religious entity which was not a "child" of a civ entity has been found so far), also have variable positions - the other religious entities have no positions at all.
If a religious entity rules a site (always monastery?), then the only variable position (of that entity) seems to be the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and the name of the position seems to be always "abbot".
Otherwise the variable positions PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created for that religious entity, where any such entity, if it has a position, will always have the PRIEST as position. Afterwards, the position HIGH_PRIEST can be created and at last - after the HIGH_PRIEST was created - the HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created. The names of these position are randomly created (more about the name generation is currently out-of-scope, ie. why a PRIEST might be called "sacred squid", "holy burial", "sacred rumor", "holy lemon" or "sacred paper" is out-of-scope at least for this wiki article). No temple is needed in an associated site for a religious entity (not ruling from a monastery) to create a priest, high priest or highest priest position.

Note that there is no historical event that mentions the creation of a PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST or HIGHEST_PRIEST position.

An overview on the positions of religious entities is given in the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name prefix!!name!!appointment type5!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!missing common flags1!!additional flags2

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER3
|
|abbot
|heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|100
|3
|2
|1
|is_diplomat
|all

|-
!PRIEST
|holy or sacred
|random4
|elected
|religion
|200
|0
|0
| -1
|none
|no

|-
!HIGH_PRIEST
|high, first or exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|50
|3
|2
| -1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|-
!HIGHEST_PRIEST
|absolute or most sacred/high/exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|1
|5
|3
|1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|}

Notes:
1): The common flags are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, is_leader, is_diplomat, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req. So if one of the flags is mentioned in a column, then the position does not have that flag.

2): The additional flags (in this case) are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, kill_quest, exported_in_legends, account_exempt, quest_giver, special_burial.

3): Is always the only position for that religious entity. And so far any such entity, which was found, always governed/ruled a monastery.

4): The name is one of the possible "name prefixes" for the position written before a completely random word, which may or may not depend on the religious spheres/domains worshipped by that religion.

5): The appointment/succession type is actually determined by flags, ie. elected and succession_by_heir. One of the flags is also true for these positions (but not explicitly mentioned in the common/additional flags).

Additional notes: The PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST have a variable color entry, but the color-flag (of the position entry) is false, so it is unclear whether currently the color entry has any effect.

== Mercenary Groups ==
All mercenary entities will have at least one position (the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER), this position is created with the creation of the group (and the creation of the entity is marked - in the history/legends - with the filling of the leader position). The only other possible position is the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER and the creation of the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER is mentioned as a historical event (and is always created "as a matter of course").

Basic information about both positions are found in the table below (and the explanations below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!! imp. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER
|usually "warlord", "leader", "general" or "overlord" but very unusual names are possible (see below table)
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER
|treasurer
|elected
|trade and accounting
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes: 1): The imp. flags are flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, punishment_exemption, kill_quest and quest giver.

Both positions also have the is_leader flag and the following flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.

For the mercenary leader also illustrious names such as lord twinkle, lord duty, lord savant, maze commander or secret commander can be created. In these cases the name seems to be generated by either adding a random word after the word lord or adding a random word before commander. Note that mercenary groups can bestow honors on either their members or their leaders and in case of leader only honors it might be that, instead of the leader name, the name of the currently highest bestowed honor (on the leader) is used.

== Guilds ==
All guilds will always have all four of the variable positions mentioned in this section. Note that "merchant guilds" are merchant companies and an entirely separate entity.

The following table gives an overview of the four guild positions.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!precedence!!demands!!mandates!!number!!add. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_LEADER
|dean/doyen
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|elected
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_ALDERPERSON
|alderperson
|meet workers, manage production
|elected
|150
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_STEWARD
|steward or treasurer
|trade
|elected
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_CLERK
|clerk, bookkeeper, recordkeeper
|accounting
|elected
|170
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes:
1): The additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill; chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, account_exempt, rules_from_location, punishment_exemption and quest_giver.

All positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions, has_met_market_positions.

== Merchant Companies ==
Every merchant company will have a leader (CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER). Furthermore a merchant company can have a CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR, to which an unlimited number of history figures can be assigned to (ie. a company can have multiple governors, but the number of current governors is always the same as the number of counting houses - branches - in non-headquarters sites). Also note that there is no history event, which mentions the creation of a position for a merchant company, still the CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR position is only created with creation of the first branch of a company (and branch creation - purchase of a counting house or building of a new counting house - and filling of custom company factor position are always at exactly the same time according to the corresponding historical events).

An overview of both positions is given by the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!additional flag

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER
|master or head
|elected or succession by heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military goals, military strategy
|50
|2
|1
|1
|is_law_maker

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR
|agent, factor, administrator or governor
|appointed by company leader
|trade and accounting
|200
|1
|0
| -1
|none

|}

Both positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, account_exempt, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver and has_met_market_req.

Also note that in contrast to many other variable positions (of different entities) for the CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER both an election based appointment (or succession) and an succesion by heir is possible, but each merchant company will only have an elected leader or a leader (with inheritance).

Variable positions

2026-03-27T11:58:17Z

Silverwing235: /* General Info */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}
'''Variable positions''' are lesser [[noble|nobility]] titles that can be created by entity leaders after initial world generation. In vanilla, this is the case for [[human]] and [[goblin]] [[Civilization|civilizations]], but also for merchants' companies, guilds, mercenary groups, [[Religion|religious groups]] and [[Criminal|criminal]]s.

== Tokens ==
The tokens that manage the creation of positions are {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}} and {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}.

SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows for the creation of lords, hearthpersons, and [[boss]]es, and VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows creation of Law-makers.

== General Info ==
Initially, none of the positions marked as variable exist for an entity. The positions will only exist for a given entity, if they are either created during world-gen, world activities(?) or by memory hacking or scripting (ie. with Lua). Ie. in vanilla, all human civilizations have at the beginning of the world-generation no positions at all, neither on the site nor civ-level, as all positions of the vanilla human civs are marked as variable (variable positions: all). When a variable (civ level) position is created, the position is only created for that civilization (entity) and not for any other entities of the same type. Ie. the creation of a law-giver for one human civ does not create law-givers for other human civs. Also presumably all site-level positions for each entity are created on a per site basis, meaning the creation of a site ruler for one site (of a civ) does not also create the site ruler positions for any other site of that civ.

The existence of a variable position does not mean that the position will also be filled by a historical figure, but during world-gen the creation of a position will usually be followed up with the position being filled. Ie. the human historical figure who forced the creation of a law-giver position, will usually become the first law-giver.

For the succession rules of a variable position (after the position has been initially filled by a historical figure), presumably, the same rules as for non-variable positions apply.

(Disclaimer: The following only applies during world-gen and normal world activities. Scripting and memory hacking can circumvent the normal limitations, but with currently unknown results).

For civ level entities, if the law-giving position is a variable position, the law-giving position does not (seem to) have any further requirements to be created (ie. no other position being already created). Ie. this position can be created by force (or popular support etc.) by any historical figure of that civ. But for all other variable (civ-level) positions the law-giving position must exist as usually the historical figure, who is the law-giver, does create the other variable positions (for various reason).

Something similar is probably the case for site level positions. Ie. if the ruler of a site is a variable position, that position needs to be created, before any other site-level variable positions can be created. And the site ruler can afterwards create other variable positions for that site. It is not yet clear if a site level ruling position can be created before a civ level ruling (law-giving) position is created (or exists). This also means that it should be possible, via memory-hacking or scripting, to create (and fill) the variable site level positions (for a player site), at least after the civ level law-giving position has been created (and the law-giving position has been filled), so that a human player site gets the maximum possible human site level positions (with the normal appointment rules for the succession/reappointment of the positions), without having to edit the raw files (as outlined in the human civ page), prior to creating a world, to make the variable positions of human civilizations to "static" ones.

Presumably for guilds (Merchant Guild and others), mercenary groups, religious orders (and criminals) also a "leader" position needs to be created by a historical figure, before other variable positions for that entity can be created.

So far, no restrictions on allowed_class or allowed_creature have been found and also the rejected_creature and rejected_class entries are always empty. Squad_size is 0, except when a variable position (in the following sections) explicitly states otherwise (ie. squad size for CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2 is 20). Also most other entries (of entity_position entry under "own") not mentioned in their section have standard values (ie. are empty). The best_appointment_precedence of all positions is 30001. Also the execution skill is always set to "-1" even for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9, whose sole responsibility is executions.

Also, variable positions are usually only created (with the exception of if they replace another position), if the position will have at least one responsibility the already created (existing) positions for that entity does not have, regardless of whether there are any more prerequisites for a variable position to be created.

=== Sources ===
See spoiler-sections of those posts.
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178697.msg8295235#msg8295235
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8084095#msg8084095
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8083631#msg8083631 (first answer)

== Civilizations ==
If all positions of a civ are variable, then the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible positions) can be created. After the creation (and filling) of the law-maker positions, the other variable positions (both CUSTOM_OFFICIALS_i and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALS_i, where i stands for a non-zero natural number) can be created in any order. These other positions are then always appointed by the law-maker of the civ. The law-maker position itself uses succession by heir.

In contrast to, for example, the positions of the dwarven civilizations, where the site nobility positions (eg. baron, duke) do get added to the own position list (vector) of the civilization, the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2) positions (of a site government) are not added to the own position list (at least for civs with all variable positions). The "own" positions list (of the civ entity) only exclusively contains the variable positions of the civ, which are all created by the civ, and no positions which are the "ruler" of a site (even if the variable site position was appointed by the law maker of the civ). Also the "site" positions list is empty (or at least no entries were found so far).

The CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position for goblins civs (in vanilla) are automatically created with the creation of the entity and there is no historical event which mentions the creation of that position. For the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER positions of the human civs, there is always a historical event which mentions the creation of that position, where the creation reason "As a matter of course" is not possible, all other reasons, which are "Collaboration", "Threats of Violence", "Force of Argument" and "Wave of popular support", are possible (and seem equally likely to be used).

The following table gives an overview over the different possible rulers of a human or goblin civilization.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!succession type!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!is diplomat!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals,
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|yes
|no

|}

Note that the ruler (law-giver or master) is not a diplomat, if and only if the ruler has the military strategy responsibility. Otherwise it seems totally random, whether a ruler (law-giver) is a diplomat or not (ie. for human civilizations the position creation reason and the civilization values do not play any role at all). Also note that the master of a goblin civilization does not have peace agreements as a responsibility.

The creation of all non-ruling positions, ie. CUSTOM_OFFICIALs, of a civ are mentioned in the history, where all CUSTOM_OFFICIALs and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs will always be created "as a matter of course", only the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS and CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY positions can be created by any reason (including "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview of the possible non-ruling civ-level positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix!!Name5!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Flags11!!Flags22!!Color!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1
|yes3
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|receive diplomats, make introductions and make topic agreements; optional: espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2
|yes3
|justiciar
|law enforcement, collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|yes
|treasurer
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|yes
|advisor/counselor
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|yes3
|chamberlain
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|yes
|butler / cup-bearer
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|yes
|doctor
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|yes
|executioner
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|yes
|chef
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|yes
|housekeeper
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS4
|no
|war leader
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|no
|no
|}
: ''Note'':
:* 1) These are the standard official flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, has_met_pop_req, color, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* 2) These are the following additional flags: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 3): Name prefix can be empty.
:* 4) These would be the values for the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, but on the civ-level that position is not created, as the military goals responsibility is already performed by the law-giver/master (and for the military strategy responsibility the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position is created instead). But a CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position would be created, if the civ leader would not have the military goals responsibility. The CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position is - in vanilla - only created for site governments and then only, if the site leader is the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.
:* 5): Name prefixes are: high, head, chief and royal.

In the above table the responsibility "espionage" of the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is optional. A civ needs to have a "cunning" value of at least 11 for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 to have the responsibility, otherwise the official will not have the espionage responsibility, consequentially all CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of goblin civs will have the espionage responsibility (as their default cunning value is 15). Only if the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is created with the "espionage" responsibility such officials can also be created for the site governments, where the leader of the site-government is not called "law-giver", (as all other responsibility are already performed by the standard custom site ruler). Also, the columns "human" and "goblin" dictate whether human and/or goblin civilizations can have the positions.

== Site Governments ==
If all positions of a civ (and with that of a site government) are variable, then a leader position for the site government needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible variable positions) can be created. The created position is usually the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, but other positions have been found, ie. CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.

Note that if a site is taken over during a war, then a new leader can be created directly with the formation of a new site government (even if the all site positions of the new owning civ are variable and the old site government did not have any leaders), in such cases the new leader position is either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or - rarer - a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (only found, if the site taken over was a Town and both the defending and attacking civilization was human).

Note that human and goblin civilizations can also create further site positions, if the current site leader is the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER (both) or FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR (only encountered/found in case of humans). All other races (eg. dwarves and elves) cannot.

Also a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER can be created for a site government (of a human civilization) before a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER for the civilization has been created.

Also note that not all site government entities need to be a child of a civilization entity, if they are not, then the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is used as a site-ruler (regardless of race, ie. even dwarven and the rare elven site government without connection to a civ will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as initial ruler/leader). Ie. a Necromancer founding a tower will generate a site government (or site entity), which does not have any parent entity, and does function as a civ entity for any of its child entities (and will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as ruler). But such Necromancer entities are not the only site entities without a parent civ (which can have positions), ie. some (all?) groups construction forts (and where the creation of the entity coincides with the construction of the fort) will also not have a parent civ (and use the entity type site).

The following table gives an overview of the possible leader positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!Responsibilities!!squad8 size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!goblin!!human!!elf!!dwarf!!flags!!appointment type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER1
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55 or 10 (rare)
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes
|standard bandit leader
|elected

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|100
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes2
|forced admin
|none3

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR4
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|65
|no
|no
|no
|yes
|dwarf forced admin
|none3

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER5
|law-giver
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals; optional6: military strategy
|0
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|civ law-giver
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER6
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|40
|yes
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|41
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; appointed by law-giver (civ)

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_27
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|35
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; optional: appointed9

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Only leader position, if the entity (site-government) is not a child of a civilization, but can also appear, if the entity has a parent civ. Only site leader position of goblins, where other site positions will be created (both cases: with civ and without civ).
:* 2): 2 of the 53 forced administrator positions of dwarves (in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs) used this forced administrator (rather than the one defined in the raws). No site official positions found for goblins so far, if the leader was a forced administrator.
:* 3): The position has no appointed_by defined, nor any form of succession by position or heir. And the position is also not elected. So how and if a forced admin gets refilled, in case of death of the previous position holder, is unclear.
:* 4): This is the forced administrator as defined in the (vanilla) dwarf raws.
:* 5): Was created once in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs. The parent civ did not have a law-maker position created. But this definition is not always used, if the law-maker position of the parent civ has not been created. Also the site-entity was the original owner/creator of the site.
:* 6): This position can get created for a newly formed site-entity, if a site-entity has created the law-maker position and afterwards the site-entity gets conquered by another entity (of the same civ) and at the time of conquest no law-giver was created (yet) for the civ.
:* 7: Can be created (and replaces the former site ruler), if the ruler (of a human site entity) was either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER with the name "lord".
:* 8): If the squad size is greater than zero, then the squad members are called soldiers (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) or hearthpeople (otherwise).
:* 9): Always appointed by the law-giver of the civilization, if the previous site leader was a forced administrator. Otherwise the appointed_by (and appointed_by_civ) definition is either empty or set to the law-giver of the civ, eg. a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, which replaces a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, can be appointed (in which case appointed by the law-giver of the civ) or not be appointed at all.
:* "by heir" in the appointment type definition entry means, that the succession is by heir. If nothing else is mentioned in the table cell, then the position did get filled immediately upon creation of the position and the first position holder was not appointed by the civ-leader, otherwise the first position holder was appointed by the civ-leader.
:* "standard bandit leader" entry in "flags" table cell means the same flags as the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER of bandit groups are set.
:* "forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "dwarf forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, special_burial.
:* "standard leader" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "civ law-giver" entry in "flags" table cell means that the flags of the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (civ level) are set, where the is_diplomat flag is only set, if (and only if) the law-giver does not have the military strategy responsibility. Also in this case the is_diplomat flag is only set, if the "law-giver" (of the site entity) does not have the military strategy responsibility.
:* Remark to forced administrator: The only differences between the forced administrator (only usable by the dwarves and defined in the raws) and the other forced administrator are, that the forced administrator of the dwarves is not a quest giver, does not rule from a location and has a different precedence.
:* The color of all leaders is the standard noble color (5,0,1), except for the forced administrators, who uses a different color entry (5,0,0).

If a leader does exist for a site entity, other variable positions can be created for that entity. In rare cases a variable official (or market official) position can even be created, if the requirements are not met (at least one of the flags has_met_pop_req and has_met_market_req is false for the position entry).

The following table gives an overview of the non-ruler variable positions of a site government.

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix1!!Name!!Name suffix2!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Color!!human!!goblin!!add. flags3

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1
|no
|sewer
|always
|maintain sewers
|0
|0
|500
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_2
|no
|grain / harvest
|always
|food supply
|1
|0
|450
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_3
|no
|fire
|always
|fire safety
|0
|0
|475
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_4
|no
|judge / magistrate / justice
|no
|judge
|1
|0
|350
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_5
|no
|building
|always
|construction permits, building safety
|1
|0
|460
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|road
|always
|maintain roads, bridges and tunnels
|1
|0
|375
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_16,7,8
|optional
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|no
|espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_27,9
|optional
|justiciar
|no
|collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|always
|treasurer
|no
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|always
|advisor / counselor
|no
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|optional
|chamberlain
|no
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|no
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|always
|butler / cup-bearer
|no
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|always
|doctor
|no
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|always
|executioner
|no
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|always
|chef
|no
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|always
|housekeeper
|no
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY4
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|no
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS5
|no
|war leader
|no
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): The possible name prefixes are "chief", "head" and "high" (always) and also "royal", if the site leader has the name "law-giver". The name prefix can be empty, if the cell entry is "optional". A name prefix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 2): The possible name suffixes are "administrator", "caretaker", "commissioner", "master" and "official". A name suffix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 3): The additional flags are: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 4): Only ever created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR. Can even be created, if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 5): Only created, either after the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created and the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was not created with the military strategy responsibility or if the leader has the name law-giver (and does not have the military strategy responsibility). Can even be created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, who has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 6): If the leader name is not law-giver (and the first site leader was not a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), then a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has the espionage responsibility. All CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of a civ (regardless of whether the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 belongs to a site government or the civ government) will either have the espionage responsibility or do not have the espionage responsibility.
:* 7): If the leader has the name law-giver then this official position has the responsibilities (and also optional resp.) as given in the civ table for the official position and not the responsibilities as in this table. Ie. that is the only case where a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 can be created for a site government without the espionage responsibility.
:* 8): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has always the responsibility make introductions, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* 9): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2 has always the responsibility law enforcement, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* In the above table the columns "human" and "goblin" donate, whether a site government of a human civilization or of a goblin civilization can have that position (or at least, if the position was encountered so far). Note so far only goblin site governments with a CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER did have further positions created.
:* All CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs created during world-gen seem to have an already constructed market present (and thus are not created for site governments ruling over a Hamlet or a Dark Pit as Hamlets and Dark Pits cannot have a market, but need to be a Town or Dark Fortress). Additionally the CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1 needs an already constructed sewer (which seems to be only created, after both a market and a keep are constructed). Also note that sewers are only constructed in towns (in contrast to ie. markets, which can also be found/constructed in other site types like Dark Fortresses, Fortresses, Hillocks, Caves and Forest Retreats).
:* In addition to the above table the "best_appointment_precedence" is 30001. Also the following flags are set (true) for all officials, regardless, of whether belonging to a human or goblin site government: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, color, menial_work_exemption and has_received_positions.
:* All of the positions are appointed by the current ruler of the site (ie. CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), except the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position will be appointed by the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, if the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created prior and the current ruler of the site government is a forced administrator.

Additionally the position entry usually has the flag active set and the flag is_replaced is false, otherwise the position would no longer be active (and might have been replaced).

== Bandits ==
Bandits use the entity types 4 and 7, which are nomadic groups (type 4) and outcasts (type 7). It must also be noted that some CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER positions are used by site governments (typically goblin site governments) both with and without a parent civilization (site government is not a child of an entity of type 0). The creation of CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR positions is never mentioned as a historical event, but the creation of CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT is (and is always created "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview over the possible variable positions used by bandits (some further info on bandit leaders is below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!squad size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!add. flags1!!rules from location!!entity type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic, outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER2
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|10
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT3
|lieutenant
|appointed by bandit leader
|patrol territory, attack enemies
|0
|1
|0
|160
| -1
|no
|no
|outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR
|representative
|appointed by bandit leader
|trade and accounting
|0
|1
|0
|70
| -1
|yes (except is_law_maker)
|yes
|outcast

|}
: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt and quest_giver
:* 2): Only difference to the other CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is the increased precedence of 10, encountered in 11 of 148 bandit leaders (148 of 175 nomadic groups had leaders). The reason is of yet unknown, except that the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is also used by the goblin civilization (and some site governments, without an entity link to a parent civ, had a nomadic group with a custom bandit leader as a child entity).
:* 3: Currently only up-to one CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT will be created for Outcast groups, despite allowing for an unlimited number. The possible reason for one getting created at all is that an assignment definition is automatically created with the creation of the position itself (while ie. for Ranger Captain, Militia Captain etc. there is currently never an assignment created, as they are neither land-holders nor is their number tied to a location or site).
:* Further note the common flags of these positions are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* The entity type in the above table refers to the (as displayed by dfhack's gm-editor, when viewing an entity).

Additionally the bandit leader (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) always has a squad size of 20 and the squad members are referred to as "bandits".

== Religious Entities ==
Some religious entities, which are considered "child"-entities of civilizations (no religious entity which was not a "child" of a civ entity has been found so far), also have variable positions - the other religious entities have no positions at all.
If a religious entity rules a site (always monastery?), then the only variable position (of that entity) seems to be the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and the name of the position seems to be always "abbot".
Otherwise the variable positions PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created for that religious entity, where any such entity, if it has a position, will always have the PRIEST as position. Afterwards, the position HIGH_PRIEST can be created and at last - after the HIGH_PRIEST was created - the HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created. The names of these position are randomly created (more about the name generation is currently out-of-scope, ie. why a PRIEST might be called "sacred squid", "holy burial", "sacred rumor", "holy lemon" or "sacred paper" is out-of-scope at least for this wiki article). No temple is needed in an associated site for a religious entity (not ruling from a monastery) to create a priest, high priest or highest priest position.

Note that there is no historical event that mentions the creation of a PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST or HIGHEST_PRIEST position.

An overview on the positions of religious entities is given in the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name prefix!!name!!appointment type5!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!missing common flags1!!additional flags2

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER3
|
|abbot
|heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|100
|3
|2
|1
|is_diplomat
|all

|-
!PRIEST
|holy or sacred
|random4
|elected
|religion
|200
|0
|0
| -1
|none
|no

|-
!HIGH_PRIEST
|high, first or exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|50
|3
|2
| -1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|-
!HIGHEST_PRIEST
|absolute or most sacred/high/exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|1
|5
|3
|1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|}

Notes:
1): The common flags are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, is_leader, is_diplomat, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req. So if one of the flags is mentioned in a column, then the position does not have that flag.

2): The additional flags (in this case) are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, kill_quest, exported_in_legends, account_exempt, quest_giver, special_burial.

3): Is always the only position for that religious entity. And so far any such entity, which was found, always governed/ruled a monastery.

4): The name is one of the possible "name prefixes" for the position written before a completely random word, which may or may not depend on the religious spheres/domains worshipped by that religion.

5): The appointment/succession type is actually determined by flags, ie. elected and succession_by_heir. One of the flags is also true for these positions (but not explicitly mentioned in the common/additional flags).

Additional notes: The PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST have a variable color entry, but the color-flag (of the position entry) is false, so it is unclear whether currently the color entry has any effect.

== Mercenary Groups ==
All mercenary entities will have at least one position (the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER), this position is created with the creation of the group (and the creation of the entity is marked - in the history/legends - with the filling of the leader position). The only other possible position is the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER and the creation of the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER is mentioned as a historical event (and is always created "as a matter of course").

Basic information about both positions are found in the table below (and the explanations below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!! imp. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER
|usually "warlord", "leader", "general" or "overlord" but very unusual names are possible (see below table)
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER
|treasurer
|elected
|trade and accounting
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes: 1): The imp. flags are flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, punishment_exemption, kill_quest and quest giver.

Both positions also have the is_leader flag and the following flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.

For the mercenary leader also illustrious names such as lord twinkle, lord duty, lord savant, maze commander or secret commander can be created. In these cases the name seems to be generated by either adding a random word after the word lord or adding a random word before commander. Note that mercenary groups can bestow honors on either their members or their leaders and in case of leader only honors it might be that, instead of the leader name, the name of the currently highest bestowed honor (on the leader) is used.

== Guilds ==
All guilds will always have all four of the variable positions mentioned in this section. Note that "merchant guilds" are merchant companies and an entirely separate entity.

The following table gives an overview of the four guild positions.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!precedence!!demands!!mandates!!number!!add. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_LEADER
|dean/doyen
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|elected
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_ALDERPERSON
|alderperson
|meet workers, manage production
|elected
|150
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_STEWARD
|steward or treasurer
|trade
|elected
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_CLERK
|clerk, bookkeeper, recordkeeper
|accounting
|elected
|170
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes:
1): The additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill; chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, account_exempt, rules_from_location, punishment_exemption and quest_giver.

All positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions, has_met_market_positions.

== Merchant Companies ==
Every merchant company will have a leader (CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER). Furthermore a merchant company can have a CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR, to which an unlimited number of history figures can be assigned to (ie. a company can have multiple governors, but the number of current governors is always the same as the number of counting houses - branches - in non-headquarters sites). Also note that there is no history event, which mentions the creation of a position for a merchant company, still the CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR position is only created with creation of the first branch of a company (and branch creation - purchase of a counting house or building of a new counting house - and filling of custom company factor position are always at exactly the same time according to the corresponding historical events).

An overview of both positions is given by the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!additional flag

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER
|master or head
|elected or succession by heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military goals, military strategy
|50
|2
|1
|1
|is_law_maker

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR
|agent, factor, administrator or governor
|appointed by company leader
|trade and accounting
|200
|1
|0
| -1
|none

|}

Both positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, account_exempt, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver and has_met_market_req.

Also note that in contrast to many other variable positions (of different entities) for the CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER both an election based appointment (or succession) and an succesion by heir is possible, but each merchant company will only have an elected leader or a leader (with inheritance).

Gremlin

2026-03-25T12:55:28Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|image=Gremlin sprites.png
|portrait=Gremlin portrait.png
|wiki=yes
}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}
'''Gremlins''' are intelligent [[cavern]] [[creature]]s who are invisible until spotted, and cause various kinds of [[fun]] in your fortress by stepping on [[pressure plate]]s, pulling [[lever]]s, opening [[cage]]s, picking locks and opening forbidden [[door]]s - it is recommended to not have gremlins and easily-accessible [[Stupid dwarf trick#Self-destruct lever|self destruct lever]]s in the same fortress. One way of exploiting their lever-pulling behaviour is to have a lever that triggers a trap to kill the user when pulled, and leaving it in an area likely to see gremlins visiting. All gremlins are born with Competent [[skill]] in [[ambusher]].

When a gremlin is discovered, the game pauses and centers on it, with the message: "{{DFtext|A gremlin! Drive it away!|4:1}}".

Despite being intelligent creatures, gremlins possess the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token and can in fact be [[Animal trainer|trained]] by your [[dwarves]], provided you can bypass their [[trapavoid|natural immunity]] to most [[trap]]s. They don't possess a pet value, which theoretically makes them worthless for keeping around your fort, but if you do manage to capture and train a gremlin, it could actually become your [[mayor]]. In fact, this is quite likely because the gremlin is not able to work, so it will spend all its time in your meeting hall making friends. After a certain period of time a trained adult gremlin will turn into a gremlin hunter and will then hunt alongside your [[hunter]]s. This is because gremlins have natural skill in ambushing, which is associated with the hunting labor.

Note that a trained gremlin will not pull levers mischievously anymore. As explained by [[main:Toady One|Toady One]], the reason they are tamable is roughly that they are supposed to be only pretending to listen to your dwarves so they can mess with your levers and then run away, though trained gremlins currently do not perform this function at all and simply act as regular (albeit buggy) pets.[https://youtu.be/nAB93hOcsPI?t=4300 Source]

In the current version, a stray gremlin will claim a [[bed]] in the [[Tavern|inn]] and become a long-term resident, eventually petitioning for citizenship. This can be mortally annoying, because they will then perform labors and ignore requests to be trained, resulting in trainers dying of starvation and thirst if you aren't careful. A solution to this is to make them exclusively soldiers, or assign them to a small burrow with a workshop exclusive to them, and make the area a training ground, which you can also order them to station in. Being trained isn't a job for the gremlin and it just has to be there; the trainer will eventually finish the job if the gremlin is in the same area. This no longer occurs with their tame offspring. This method can also work for other trained intelligent creatures if you've [[modding|modded]] them to be pets.

Gremlins are carnivorous due to having the {{token|BONECARN}} tag, and are notably long-lived, with some living up to 1000 years. Due to their minuscule size, they are terrible at handling [[alcohol]], and cannot wear any other creatures' clothes or armor, nor can clothes or armor be ordered to fit them{{verify|Is this due to the PET_EXOTIC token?}}.

Some dwarves [[Preferences|like]] gremlins for their ''mischief''.

[[File:gremlin_preview.jpg|thumb|230px|center|Acts as bad as he looks.]]

== Trivia ==
Gremlins can talk, and be recruited in [[adventurer mode]], which is useful if one is trapped in a cave and cannot find [[animal people]]. Also, because they both inhabit the first cavern layer and are trainable, the dwarven [[Trading|caravan]] will offer their bodily fluids for sale, including gremlin [[blood]], sweat and tears.{{verify}}
{{D for Dwarf}}


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zWSrT2TfBc Don't expose them to bright light. Don't feed them after midnight. Don't get them wet.]

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Humanoids}}

Gremlin

2026-03-25T12:54:50Z

Silverwing235: /* Trivia */

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|image=Gremlin sprites.png
|portrait=Gremlin portrait.png
|wiki=yes
}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}
'''Gremlins''' are intelligent [[cavern]] [[creature]]s who are invisible until spotted, and cause various kinds of [[fun]] in your fortress by stepping on [[pressure plate]]s, pulling [[lever]]s, opening [[cage]]s, picking locks and opening forbidden [[door]]s - it is recommended to not have gremlins and easily-accessible [[Stupid dwarf trick#Self-destruct lever|self destruct lever]]s in the same fortress. One way of exploiting their lever-pulling behaviour is to have a lever that triggers a trap to kill the user when pulled, and leaving it in an area likely to see gremlins visiting. All gremlins are born with Competent [[skill]] in [[ambusher]].

When a gremlin is discovered, the game pauses and centers on it, with the message: "{{DFtext|A gremlin! Drive it away!|4:1}}".

Despite being intelligent creatures, gremlins possess the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token and can in fact be [[Animal trainer|trained]] by your [[dwarves]], provided you can bypass their [[trapavoid|natural immunity]] to most [[trap]]s. They don't possess a pet value, which theoretically makes them worthless for keeping around your fort, but if you do manage to capture and train a gremlin, it could actually become your [[mayor]]. In fact, this is quite likely because the gremlin is not able to work, so it will spend all its time in your meeting hall making friends. After a certain period of time a trained adult gremlin will turn into a gremlin hunter and will then hunt alongside your [[hunter]]s. This is because gremlins have natural skill in ambushing, which is associated with the hunting labor.

Note that a trained gremlin will not pull levers mischievously anymore. As explained by [[main:Toady One|Toady One]], the reason they are tamable is roughly that they are supposed to be only pretending to listen to your dwarves so they can mess with your levers and then run away, though trained gremlins currently do not perform this function at all and simply act as regular (albeit buggy) pets.[https://youtu.be/nAB93hOcsPI?t=4300 Source]

In the current version, a stray gremlin will claim a [[bed]] in the [[Tavern|inn]] and become a long-term resident, eventually petitioning for citizenship. This can be mortally annoying, because they will then perform labors and ignore requests to be trained, resulting in trainers dying of starvation and thirst if you aren't careful. A solution to this is to make them exclusively soldiers, or assign them to a small burrow with a workshop exclusive to them, and make the area a training ground, which you can also order them to station in. Being trained isn't a job for the gremlin and it just has to be there; the trainer will eventually finish the job if the gremlin is in the same area. This no longer occurs with their tame offspring. This method can also work for other trained intelligent creatures if you've [[modding|modded]] them to be pets.

Gremlins are carnivorous due to having the {{token|BONECARN}} tag, and are notably long-lived, with some living up to 1000 years. Due to their minuscule size, they are terrible at handling [[alcohol]], and cannot wear any other creatures' clothes or armor, nor can clothes or armor be ordered to fit them{{verify|Is this due to the PET_EXOTIC token?}}.

Some dwarves [[Preferences|like]] gremlins for their ''mischief''.

[[File:gremlin_preview.jpg|thumb|230px|center|Acts as bad as he looks.]]

== Trivia ==
Gremlins can talk, and be recruited in [[adventurer mode]], which is useful if one is trapped in a cave and cannot find [[animal people]]. Also, because they both inhabit the first cavern layer and are trainable, the dwarven [[Trading|caravan]] will offer their bodily fluids for sale, including gremlin [[blood]], sweat and tears.{{verify}}
{{D for Dwarf}}



[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zWSrT2TfBc Don't expose them to bright light. Don't feed them after midnight. Don't get them wet.]

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Humanoids}}

Gremlin

2026-03-23T23:16:13Z

Silverwing235:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|image=Gremlin sprites.png
|portrait=Gremlin portrait.png
|wiki=yes
}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}
'''Gremlins''' are intelligent [[cavern]] [[creature]]s who are invisible until spotted, and cause various kinds of [[fun]] in your fortress by stepping on [[pressure plate]]s, pulling [[lever]]s, opening [[cage]]s, picking locks and opening forbidden [[door]]s - it is recommended to not have gremlins and easily-accessible [[Stupid dwarf trick#Self-destruct lever|self destruct lever]]s in the same fortress. One way of exploiting their lever-pulling behaviour is to have a lever that triggers a trap to kill the user when pulled, and leaving it in an area likely to see gremlins visiting. All gremlins are born with Competent [[skill]] in [[ambusher]].

When a gremlin is discovered, the game pauses and centers on it, with the message: "{{DFtext|A gremlin! Drive it away!|4:1}}".

Despite being intelligent creatures, gremlins possess the {{token|PET_EXOTIC}} token and can in fact be [[Animal trainer|trained]] by your [[dwarves]], provided you can bypass their [[trapavoid|natural immunity]] to most [[trap]]s. They don't possess a pet value, which theoretically makes them worthless for keeping around your fort, but if you do manage to capture and train a gremlin, it could actually become your [[mayor]]. In fact, this is quite likely because the gremlin is not able to work, so it will spend all its time in your meeting hall making friends. After a certain period of time a trained adult gremlin will turn into a gremlin hunter and will then hunt alongside your [[hunter]]s. This is because gremlins have natural skill in ambushing, which is associated with the hunting labor.

Note that a trained gremlin will not pull levers mischievously anymore. As explained by [[main:Toady One|Toady One]], the reason they are tamable is roughly that they are supposed to be only pretending to listen to your dwarves so they can mess with your levers and then run away, though trained gremlins currently do not perform this function at all and simply act as regular (albeit buggy) pets.[https://youtu.be/nAB93hOcsPI?t=4300 Source]

In the current version, a stray gremlin will claim a [[bed]] in the [[Tavern|inn]] and become a long-term resident, eventually petitioning for citizenship. This can be mortally annoying, because they will then perform labors and ignore requests to be trained, resulting in trainers dying of starvation and thirst if you aren't careful. A solution to this is to make them exclusively soldiers, or assign them to a small burrow with a workshop exclusive to them, and make the area a training ground, which you can also order them to station in. Being trained isn't a job for the gremlin and it just has to be there; the trainer will eventually finish the job if the gremlin is in the same area. This no longer occurs with their tame offspring. This method can also work for other trained intelligent creatures if you've [[modding|modded]] them to be pets.

Gremlins are carnivorous due to having the {{token|BONECARN}} tag, and are notably long-lived, with some living up to 1000 years. Due to their minuscule size, they are terrible at handling [[alcohol]], and cannot wear any other creatures' clothes or armor, nor can clothes or armor be ordered to fit them{{verify|Is this due to the PET_EXOTIC token?}}.

Some dwarves [[Preferences|like]] gremlins for their ''mischief''.

[[File:gremlin_preview.jpg|thumb|230px|center|Acts as bad as he looks.]]

== Trivia ==
Gremlins can talk, and be recruited in [[adventurer mode]], which is useful if one is trapped in a cave and cannot find [[animal people]]. Also, because they both inhabit the first cavern layer and are trainable, the dwarven [[Trading|caravan]] will offer their bodily fluids for sale, including gremlin [[blood]], sweat and tears.{{verify}}
{{D for Dwarf}}


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zWSrT2TfBc Don't expose them to bright light. Don't feed them after midnight. Don't get them wet.]

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Humanoids}}

Variable positions

2026-03-22T14:42:45Z

Silverwing235: /* Civilizations */

{{Quality|Fine}}
{{Modding}}
'''Variable positions''' are lesser [[noble|nobility]] titles that can be created by entity leaders after initial world generation. In vanilla, this is the case for [[human]] and [[goblin]] [[Civilization|civilizations]], but also for merchants' companies, guilds, mercenary groups, [[Religion|religious groups]] and [[Criminal|criminal]]s.

== Tokens ==
The tokens that manage the creation of positions are {{token|SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}} and {{token|VARIABLE_POSITIONS|entity}}.

SITE_VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows for the creation of lords, hearthpersons, and [[boss]]es, and VARIABLE_POSITIONS allows creation of Law-makers.

== General Info ==
Initially none of the positions marked as variable do exist for an entity. The positions will only exist for a given entity, if they are either created during world-gen, world activities(?) or by memory hacking or scripting (ie. with Lua). Ie. in vanilla all human civilizations have at the beginning of the world-generation no positions at all, neither on the site nor civ level, as all positions of the vanilla human civs are marked as variable (variable positions: all). When a variable (civ level) position is created, the position is only created for that civilization (entity) and not for any other entities of the same type. Ie. the creation of a law-giver for one human civ does not create law-givers for other human civs.

Also presumably all site-level positions for each entity are created on a per site basis, meaning the creation of a site ruler for one site (of a civ) does not also create the site ruler positions for any other site (of that civ).

The existence of a variable position does not mean that the position will also be filled by a historical figure. But during world-gen the creation of a position will usually be followed up with the position being filled. Ie. the human historical figure who forced the creation of a law-giver position, will usually become the first law-giver.

For the succession rules of a variable position (after the position has been initially filled by a historical figure), presumably, the same rules as for non-variable positions apply.

(Disclaimer: The following only applies during world-gen and normal world activities. Scripting and memory hacking can circumvent the normal limitations, but with currently unknown results).

For civ level entities, if the law-giving position is a variable position, the law-giving position does not (seem to) have any further requirements to be created (ie. no other position being already created). Ie. this position can be created by force (or popular support etc.) by any historical figure of that civ. But for all other variable (civ-level) positions the law-giving position must exist as usually the historical figure, who is the law-giver, does create the other variable positions (for various reason).

Something similar is probably the case for site level positions. Ie. if the ruler of a site is a variable position, that position needs to be created, before any other site-level variable positions can be created. And the site ruler can afterwards create other variable positions for that site. It is not yet clear if a site level ruling position can be created before a civ level ruling (law-giving) position is created (or exists). This also means that it should be possible, via memory-hacking or scripting, to create (and fill) the variable site level positions (for a player site), at least after the civ level law-giving position has been created (and the law-giving position has been filled), so that a human player site gets the maximum possible human site level positions (with the normal appointment rules for the succession/reappointment of the positions), without having to edit the raw files (as outlined in the human civ page), prior to creating a world, to make the variable positions of human civilizations to "static" ones.

Presumably for guilds (Merchant Guild and others), mercenary groups, religious orders (and criminals) also a "leader" position needs to be created by a historical figure, before other variable positions for that entity can be created.

So far, no restrictions on allowed_class or allowed_creature have been found and also the rejected_creature and rejected_class entries are always empty. Squad_size is 0, except when a variable position (in the following sections) explicitly states otherwise (ie. squad size for CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2 is 20). Also most other entries (of entity_position entry under "own") not mentioned in their section have standard values (ie. are empty). The best_appointment_precedence of all positions is 30001. Also the execution skill is always set to "-1" even for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9, whose sole responsibility is executions.

Also variable positions are usually only created (with the exception, if they replace another position), if the position will have at least one responsibility the already created (existing) positions for that entity does not have, regardless of whether there are any more prerequisites for a variable position to be created.

=== Sources ===
See spoiler-sections of those posts.
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=178697.msg8295235#msg8295235
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8084095#msg8084095
* https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175434.msg8083631#msg8083631 (first answer)

== Civilizations ==
If all positions of a civ are variable, then the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible positions) can be created. After the creation (and filling) of the law-maker positions, the other variable positions (both CUSTOM_OFFICIALS_i and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALS_i, where i stands for a non-zero natural number) can be created in any order. These other positions are then always appointed by the law-maker of the civ. The law-maker position itself uses succession by heir.

In contrast to, for example, the positions of the dwarven civilizations, where the site nobility positions (eg. baron, duke) do get added to the own position list (vector) of the civilization, the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (and CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2) positions (of a site government) are not added to the own position list (at least for civs with all variable positions). The "own" positions list (of the civ entity) only exclusively contains the variable positions of the civ, which are all created by the civ, and no positions which are the "ruler" of a site (even if the variable site position was appointed by the law maker of the civ). Also the "site" positions list is empty (or at least no entries were found so far).

The CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER position for goblins civs (in vanilla) are automatically created with the creation of the entity and there is no historical event which mentions the creation of that position. For the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER positions of the human civs, there is always a historical event which mentions the creation of that position, where the creation reason "As a matter of fact" is not possible, all other reasons, which are "Collaboration", "Threats of Violence", "Force of Argument" and "Wave of popular support", are possible (and seem equally likely to be used).

The following table gives an overview over the different possible rulers of a human or goblin civilization.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!succession type!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!is diplomat!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|master
|none
|law making, military goals,
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals, military strategy
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|law-giver
|by heir
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals
|3
|2
|1
|yes
|yes
|no

|}

Note that the ruler (law-giver or master) is not a diplomat, if and only if the ruler has the military strategy responsibility. Otherwise it seems totally random, whether a ruler (law-giver) is a diplomat or not (ie. for human civilizations the position creation reason and the civilization values do not play any role at all). Also note that the master of a goblin civilization does not have peace agreements as a responsibility.

The creation of all non-ruling positions, ie. CUSTOM_OFFICIALs, of a civ are mentioned in the history, where all CUSTOM_OFFICIALs and CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs will always be created "as a matter of course", only the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS and CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY positions can be created by any reason (including "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview of the possible non-ruling civ-level positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix!!Name5!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Flags11!!Flags22!!Color!!human!!goblin

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1
|yes3
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|receive diplomats, make introductions and make topic agreements; optional: espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2
|yes3
|justiciar
|law enforcement, collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|yes
|treasurer
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|yes
|advisor/counselor
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|yes3
|chamberlain
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|yes
|butler / cup-bearer
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|yes
|doctor
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|yes
|executioner
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|yes
|chef
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|yes
|housekeeper
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|yes
|no
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS4
|no
|war leader
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|yes
|yes
|(5,0,1)
|no
|no
|}
: ''Note'':
:* 1) These are the standard official flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, has_met_pop_req, color, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* 2) These are the following additional flags: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 3): Name prefix can be empty.
:* 4) These would be the values for the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, but on the civ-level that position is not created, as the military goals responsibility is already performed by the law-giver/master (and for the military strategy responsibility the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position is created instead). But a CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position would be created, if the civ leader would not have the military goals responsibility. The CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position is - in vanilla - only created for site governments and then only, if the site leader is the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.
:* 5): Name prefixes are: high, head, chief and royal.

In the above table the responsibility "espionage" of the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is optional. A civ needs to have a "cunning" value of at least 11 for the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 to have the responsibility, otherwise the official will not have the espionage responsibility, consequentially all CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of goblin civs will have the espionage responsibility (as their default cunning value is 15). Only if the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 is created with the "espionage" responsibility such officials can also be created for the site governments, where the leader of the site-government is not called "law-giver", (as all other responsibility are already performed by the standard custom site ruler). Also, the columns "human" and "goblin" dictate whether human and/or goblin civilizations can have the positions.

== Site Governments ==
If all positions of a civ (and with that of a site government) are variable, then a leader position for the site government needs to be created (in world-gen), before other positions (of the possible variable positions) can be created. The created position is usually the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, but other positions have been found, ie. CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR.

Note that if a site is taken over during a war, then a new leader can be created directly with the formation of a new site government (even if the all site positions of the new owning civ are variable and the old site government did not have any leaders), in such cases the new leader position is either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or - rarer - a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (only found, if the site taken over was a Town and both the defending and attacking civilization was human).

Note that human and goblin civilizations can also create further site positions, if the current site leader is the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER (both) or FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR (only encountered/found in case of humans). All other races (eg. dwarves and elves) cannot.

Also a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER can be created for a site government (of a human civilization) before a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER for the civilization has been created.

Also note that not all site government entities need to be a child of a civilization entity, if they are not, then the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is used as a site-ruler (regardless of race, ie. even dwarven and the rare elven site government without connection to a civ will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as initial ruler/leader). Ie. a Necromancer founding a tower will generate a site government (or site entity), which does not have any parent entity, and does function as a civ entity for any of its child entities (and will use the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER as ruler). But such Necromancer entities are not the only site entities without a parent civ (which can have positions), ie. some (all?) groups construction forts (and where the creation of the entity coincides with the construction of the fort) will also not have a parent civ (and use the entity type site).

The following table gives an overview of the possible leader positions:

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!Responsibilities!!squad8 size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!goblin!!human!!elf!!dwarf!!flags!!appointment type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER1
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55 or 10 (rare)
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes
|standard bandit leader
|elected

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|100
|yes
|yes
|yes
|yes2
|forced admin
|none3

|-
!FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR4
|administrator
|law making, receive diplomats, meet workers, make topic agreements
|0
|3
|2
|65
|no
|no
|no
|yes
|dwarf forced admin
|none3

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER5
|law-giver
|law making, make peace agreements, military goals; optional6: military strategy
|0
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|civ law-giver
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER6
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|1
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|lord
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|40
|yes
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|41
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; appointed by law-giver (civ)

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_27
|baron
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|20
|3
|2
|35
|no
|yes
|no
|no
|standard leader
|by heir; optional: appointed9

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Only leader position, if the entity (site-government) is not a child of a civilization, but can also appear, if the entity has a parent civ. Only site leader position of goblins, where other site positions will be created (both cases: with civ and without civ).
:* 2): 2 of the 53 forced administrator positions of dwarves (in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs) used this forced administrator (rather than the one defined in the raws). No site official positions found for goblins so far, if the leader was a forced administrator.
:* 3): The position has no appointed_by defined, nor any form of succession by position or heir. And the position is also not elected. So how and if a forced admin gets refilled, in case of death of the previous position holder, is unclear.
:* 4): This is the forced administrator as defined in the (vanilla) dwarf raws.
:* 5): Was created once in a large 250 year history world-gen world with many civs. The parent civ did not have a law-maker position created. But this definition is not always used, if the law-maker position of the parent civ has not been created. Also the site-entity was the original owner/creator of the site.
:* 6): This position can get created for a newly formed site-entity, if a site-entity has created the law-maker position and afterwards the site-entity gets conquered by another entity (of the same civ) and at the time of conquest no law-giver was created (yet) for the civ.
:* 7: Can be created (and replaces the former site ruler), if the ruler (of a human site entity) was either a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR or a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER with the name "lord".
:* 8): If the squad size is greater than zero, then the squad members are called soldiers (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) or hearthpeople (otherwise).
:* 9): Always appointed by the law-giver of the civilization, if the previous site leader was a forced administrator. Otherwise the appointed_by (and appointed_by_civ) definition is either empty or set to the law-giver of the civ, eg. a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2, which replaces a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, can be appointed (in which case appointed by the law-giver of the civ) or not be appointed at all.
:* "by heir" in the appointment type definition entry means, that the succession is by heir. If nothing else is mentioned in the table cell, then the position did get filled immediately upon creation of the position and the first position holder was not appointed by the civ-leader, otherwise the first position holder was appointed by the civ-leader.
:* "standard bandit leader" entry in "flags" table cell means the same flags as the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER of bandit groups are set.
:* "forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "dwarf forced admin" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, is_diplomat, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, menial_work_exemption, sleep_pretension, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, special_burial.
:* "standard leader" entry in "flags" table cell: is_law_maker, duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, exported_in_legends, determines_coin_design, account_exempt, color, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver, special_burial.
:* "civ law-giver" entry in "flags" table cell means that the flags of the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER (civ level) are set, where the is_diplomat flag is only set, if (and only if) the law-giver does not have the military strategy responsibility. Also in this case the is_diplomat flag is only set, if the "law-giver" (of the site entity) does not have the military strategy responsibility.
:* Remark to forced administrator: The only differences between the forced administrator (only usable by the dwarves and defined in the raws) and the other forced administrator are, that the forced administrator of the dwarves is not a quest giver, does not rule from a location and has a different precedence.
:* The color of all leaders is the standard noble color (5,0,1), except for the forced administrators, who uses a different color entry (5,0,0).

If a leader does exist for a site entity, other variable positions can be created for that entity. In rare cases a variable official (or market official) position can even be created, if the requirements are not met (at least one of the flags has_met_pop_req and has_met_market_req is false for the position entry).

The following table gives an overview of the non-ruler variable positions of a site government.

{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name prefix1!!Name!!Name suffix2!!Responsibilities!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!Color!!human!!goblin!!add. flags3

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1
|no
|sewer
|always
|maintain sewers
|0
|0
|500
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_2
|no
|grain / harvest
|always
|food supply
|1
|0
|450
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_3
|no
|fire
|always
|fire safety
|0
|0
|475
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_4
|no
|judge / magistrate / justice
|no
|judge
|1
|0
|350
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_5
|no
|building
|always
|construction permits, building safety
|1
|0
|460
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|road
|always
|maintain roads, bridges and tunnels
|1
|0
|375
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_16,7,8
|optional
|"keeper of the seal" / chancellor
|no
|espionage
|3
|2
|20
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_27,9
|optional
|justiciar
|no
|collect taxes
|3
|2
|60
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_3
|always
|treasurer
|no
|trade, accounting
|2
|1
|70
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_4
|always
|advisor / counselor
|no
|advise leaders
|2
|1
|55
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_5
|optional
|chamberlain
|no
|oversee leader household
|1
|0
|80
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_6
|no
|master of beasts
|no
|tame exotics, manage animals
|1
|0
|90
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_7
|always
|butler / cup-bearer
|no
|manage leader household food and drinks
|0
|0
|300
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_8
|always
|doctor
|no
|health management
|0
|0
|310
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_9
|always
|executioner
|no
|executions
|0
|0
|320
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|yes
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_10
|always
|chef
|no
|prepare leader meals
|0
|0
|330
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_11
|always
|housekeeper
|no
|manage leader household cleanliness
|0
|0
|340
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY4
|no
|general/(field) marshal / constable
|no
|military strategy
|3
|2
|50
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS5
|no
|war leader
|no
|military goals, optional: military strategy
|3
|2
|45
|1
|(5,0,1)
|yes
|no
|yes

|}

: ''Notes'':
:* 1): The possible name prefixes are "chief", "head" and "high" (always) and also "royal", if the site leader has the name "law-giver". The name prefix can be empty, if the cell entry is "optional". A name prefix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 2): The possible name suffixes are "administrator", "caretaker", "commissioner", "master" and "official". A name suffix will always be present, if the cell entry is "always".
:* 3): The additional flags are: flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt, punishment_exemption, quest_giver and special_burial.
:* 4): Only ever created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR. Can even be created, if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 5): Only created, either after the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created and the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was not created with the military strategy responsibility or if the leader has the name law-giver (and does not have the military strategy responsibility). Can even be created, if the first site leader was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, who has already been replaced by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2.
:* 6): If the leader name is not law-giver (and the first site leader was not a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), then a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has the espionage responsibility. All CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 of a civ (regardless of whether the CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 belongs to a site government or the civ government) will either have the espionage responsibility or do not have the espionage responsibility.
:* 7): If the leader has the name law-giver then this official position has the responsibilities (and also optional resp.) as given in the civ table for the official position and not the responsibilities as in this table. Ie. that is the only case where a CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 can be created for a site government without the espionage responsibility.
:* 8): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_1 has always the responsibility make introductions, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* 9): The CUSTOM_OFFICIAL_2 has always the responsibility law enforcement, if the first site leader/ruler was a FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR, even if the FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR has already been replaced (by a CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER_2).
:* In the above table the columns "human" and "goblin" donate, whether a site government of a human civilization or of a goblin civilization can have that position (or at least, if the position was encountered so far). Note so far only goblin site governments with a CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER did have further positions created.
:* All CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIALs created during world-gen seem to have an already constructed market present (and thus are not created for site governments ruling over a Hamlet or a Dark Pit as Hamlets and Dark Pits cannot have a market, but need to be a Town or Dark Fortress). Additionally the CUSTOM_MARKET_OFFICIAL_1 needs an already constructed sewer (which seems to be only created, after both a market and a keep are constructed). Also note that sewers are only constructed in towns (in contrast to ie. markets, which can also be found/constructed in other site types like Dark Fortresses, Fortresses, Hillocks, Caves and Forest Retreats).
:* In addition to the above table the "best_appointment_precedence" is 30001. Also the following flags are set (true) for all officials, regardless, of whether belonging to a human or goblin site government: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, color, menial_work_exemption and has_received_positions.
:* All of the positions are appointed by the current ruler of the site (ie. CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER, CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER, FORCED_ADMINISTRATOR), except the CUSTOM_MILITARY_STRATEGY position will be appointed by the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position, if the CUSTOM_MILITARY_GOALS position was created prior and the current ruler of the site government is a forced administrator.

Additionally the position entry usually has the flag active set and the flag is_replaced is false, otherwise the position would no longer be active (and might have been replaced).

== Bandits ==
Bandits use the entity types 4 and 7, which are nomadic groups (type 4) and outcasts (type 7). It must also be noted that some CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER positions are used by site governments (typically goblin site governments) both with and without a parent civilization (site government is not a child of an entity of type 0). The creation of CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER and CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR positions is never mentioned as a historical event, but the creation of CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT is (and is always created "as a matter of course").

The following table gives an overview over the possible variable positions used by bandits (some further info on bandit leaders is below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!squad size!!Demands!!Mandates!!Precedence!!Number!!add. flags1!!rules from location!!entity type

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|55
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic, outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER2
|Boss, Captain, Chief, Chieftain, Commander, Leader, Master, Overlord, Ringleader or Warlord
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introduction, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy and military goals
|20
|2
|1
|10
|1
|yes
|no
|nomadic

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT3
|lieutenant
|appointed by bandit leader
|patrol territory, attack enemies
|0
|1
|0
|160
| -1
|no
|no
|outcast

|-
!CUSTOM_OUTCAST_FACTOR
|representative
|appointed by bandit leader
|trade and accounting
|0
|1
|0
|70
| -1
|yes (except is_law_maker)
|yes
|outcast

|}
: ''Notes'':
:* 1): Additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, kill_quest, account_exempt and quest_giver
:* 2): Only difference to the other CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is the increased precedence of 10, encountered in 11 of 148 bandit leaders (148 of 175 nomadic groups had leaders). The reason is of yet unknown, except that the CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER is also used by the goblin civilization (and some site governments, without an entity link to a parent civ, had a nomadic group with a custom bandit leader as a child entity).
:* 3: Currently only up-to one CUSTOM_OUTCAST_LT will be created for Outcast groups, despite allowing for an unlimited number. The possible reason for one getting created at all is that an assignment definition is automatically created with the creation of the position itself (while ie. for Ranger Captain, Militia Captain etc. there is currently never an assignment created, as they are neither land-holders nor is their number tied to a location or site).
:* Further note the common flags of these positions are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.
:* The entity type in the above table refers to the (as displayed by dfhack's gm-editor, when viewing an entity).

Additionally the bandit leader (CUSTOM_BANDIT_LEADER) always has a squad size of 20 and the squad members are referred to as "bandits".

== Religious Entities ==
Some religious entities, which are considered "child"-entities of civilizations (no religious entity which was not a "child" of a civ entity has been found so far), also have variable positions - the other religious entities have no positions at all.
If a religious entity rules a site (always monastery?), then the only variable position (of that entity) seems to be the CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER and the name of the position seems to be always "abbot".
Otherwise the variable positions PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created for that religious entity, where any such entity, if it has a position, will always have the PRIEST as position. Afterwards, the position HIGH_PRIEST can be created and at last - after the HIGH_PRIEST was created - the HIGHEST_PRIEST can be created. The names of these position are randomly created (more about the name generation is currently out-of-scope, ie. why a PRIEST might be called "sacred squid", "holy burial", "sacred rumor", "holy lemon" or "sacred paper" is out-of-scope at least for this wiki article). No temple is needed in an associated site for a religious entity (not ruling from a monastery) to create a priest, high priest or highest priest position.

Note that there is no historical event that mentions the creation of a PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST or HIGHEST_PRIEST position.

An overview on the positions of religious entities is given in the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name prefix!!name!!appointment type5!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!missing common flags1!!additional flags2

|-
!CUSTOM_LAW_MAKER3
|
|abbot
|heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|100
|3
|2
|1
|is_diplomat
|all

|-
!PRIEST
|holy or sacred
|random4
|elected
|religion
|200
|0
|0
| -1
|none
|no

|-
!HIGH_PRIEST
|high, first or exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|50
|3
|2
| -1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|-
!HIGHEST_PRIEST
|absolute or most sacred/high/exalted
|random4
|elected
|law_making, receive diplomats and make topic agreements
|1
|5
|3
|1
|none
|all (except determines_coin_design)

|}

Notes:
1): The common flags are: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, is_leader, is_diplomat, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req. So if one of the flags is mentioned in a column, then the position does not have that flag.

2): The additional flags (in this case) are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill, kill_quest, exported_in_legends, account_exempt, quest_giver, special_burial.

3): Is always the only position for that religious entity. And so far any such entity, which was found, always governed/ruled a monastery.

4): The name is one of the possible "name prefixes" for the position written before a completely random word, which may or may not depend on the religious spheres/domains worshipped by that religion.

5): The appointment/succession type is actually determined by flags, ie. elected and succession_by_heir. One of the flags is also true for these positions (but not explicitly mentioned in the common/additional flags).

Additional notes: The PRIEST, HIGH_PRIEST and HIGHEST_PRIEST have a variable color entry, but the color-flag (of the position entry) is false, so it is unclear whether currently the color entry has any effect.

== Mercenary Groups ==
All mercenary entities will have at least one position (the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER), this position is created with the creation of the group (and the creation of the entity is marked - in the history/legends - with the filling of the leader position). The only other possible position is the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER and the creation of the CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER is mentioned as a historical event (and is always created "as a matter of course").

Basic information about both positions are found in the table below (and the explanations below the table).

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!! imp. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_LEADER
|usually "warlord", "leader", "general" or "overlord" but very unusual names are possible (see below table)
|elected
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_MERCENARY_TREASURER
|treasurer
|elected
|trade and accounting
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes: 1): The imp. flags are flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, punishment_exemption, kill_quest and quest giver.

Both positions also have the is_leader flag and the following flags: duty_bound, has_responsibilities, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions and has_met_market_req.

For the mercenary leader also illustrious names such as lord twinkle, lord duty, lord savant, maze commander or secret commander can be created. In these cases the name seems to be generated by either adding a random word after the word lord or adding a random word before commander. Note that mercenary groups can bestow honors on either their members or their leaders and in case of leader only honors it might be that, instead of the leader name, the name of the currently highest bestowed honor (on the leader) is used.

== Guilds ==
All guilds will always have all four of the variable positions mentioned in this section. Note that "merchant guilds" are merchant companies and an entirely separate entity.

The following table gives an overview of the four guild positions.

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!Name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!precedence!!demands!!mandates!!number!!add. flags1

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_LEADER
|dean/doyen
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military strategy, military goals
|elected
|50
|2
|1
|1
|yes

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_ALDERPERSON
|alderperson
|meet workers, manage production
|elected
|150
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_STEWARD
|steward or treasurer
|trade
|elected
|160
|1
|0
|1
|no

|-
!CUSTOM_GUILD_CLERK
|clerk, bookkeeper, recordkeeper
|accounting
|elected
|170
|1
|0
|1
|no

|}

Notes:
1): The additional flags are: is_law_maker, flashes, brag_on_kill; chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, account_exempt, rules_from_location, punishment_exemption and quest_giver.

All positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, do_not_cull, is_leader, has_met_pop_req, menial_work_exemption, has_received_positions, has_met_market_positions.

== Merchant Companies ==
Every merchant company will have a leader (CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER). Furthermore a merchant company can have a CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR, to which an unlimited number of history figures can be assigned to (ie. a company can have multiple governors, but the number of current governors is always the same as the number of counting houses - branches - in non-headquarters sites). Also note that there is no history event, which mentions the creation of a position for a merchant company, still the CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR position is only created with creation of the first branch of a company (and branch creation - purchase of a counting house or building of a new counting house - and filling of custom company factor position are always at exactly the same time according to the corresponding historical events).

An overview of both positions is given by the following table:

{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- style="background:#F2F2F2;"
!Position!!name!!appointment type!!Responsibilities!!Precedence!!Demands!!Mandates!!number!!additional flag

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER
|master or head
|elected or succession by heir
|law making, law enforcement, receive diplomats, make introductions, make peace agreements, make topic agreements, military goals, military strategy
|50
|2
|1
|1
|is_law_maker

|-
!CUSTOM_COMPANY_FACTOR
|agent, factor, administrator or governor
|appointed by company leader
|trade and accounting
|200
|1
|0
| -1
|none

|}

Both positions have the following flags in common:
duty_bound, has_responsibilities, flashes, brag_on_kill, chat_worthy, do_not_cull, kill_quest, is_leader, account_exempt, has_met_pop_req, rules_from_location, menial_work_exemption, punishment_exemption, has_received_positions, quest_giver and has_met_market_req.

Also note that in contrast to many other variable positions (of different entities) for the CUSTOM_COMPANY_LEADER both an election based appointment (or succession) and an succesion by heir is possible, but each merchant company will only have an elected leader or a leader (with inheritance).